Housing

One of the primary levers a city has when it comes to long term affordability is growth. Unfortunately, when I talk about housing affordability, I’m not talking about money back in your pocket next year. I’m talking about the next few decades and how we keep housing prices from continuing to rise across the board.

We simply do not have enough housing in Oshkosh, and until we fix that, affordability is only going to keep getting worse. That means building more housing, full stop, and doing it faster.

At the city level, that means taking a hard look at our regulations. I was just talking to a resident today, a local realtor who spent her entire career here, and she told me straight up that people don’t want to build in Oshkosh because the process is too difficult and slow. When builders walk away, that hurts everyone.

So we need to cut through unnecessary red tape, make the permitting process more efficient, and make Oshkosh a place people actually want to invest in. It also means giving people more choices.

Right now, too much of the city is zoned almost exclusively for single family homes. We should be supporting ADUs, duplexes, and multi family housing so people have real options.

And just to be clear, when I say affordable housing, I don’t mean free housing. I mean housing working people can realistically afford. Affordable housing is generally 30% of income, not free. Teachers, service workers, seniors on fixed incomes, young families, people who already live and work here and want to stay.

Growth and affordability go hand in hand. If we want Oshkosh to be a place people can afford to build their lives, we have to build.