(Waupun) Waupun Mayor Rohn Bishop discussed his veto of a housing study approved by the common council on a recent Community Comment. The council had unanimously signed off on the agreement with Vandewalle and Associates for an affordable housing strategy.
In his veto message last month, Bishop says he believed the decision needed community review and input. On WBEV’s Community Comment, the mayor noted the financial cost of the study.
“It’s $15,000 which I know in a city budget our size isn’t a lot of money but to me it’s a lot of money…and what is this study going to tell us that we already don’t know,” says Bishop. “We know we have a housing shortage, and we know housing is getting more expensive.”
Bishop says the city already knows the type of housing they need.
“Like townhouses and condos for people who are older to buy,” says Bishop. “Whenever we’ve had them in Waupun, they sell like crazy…we’ve got a couple of locations where we are working on bringing more of that to Waupun. That’ll allow senior citizens to buy one of those places…and that opens up a house for a family.”
The council ultimately voted to sustain the veto, citing that a housing study was done in 2020 and not much had come from it. Bishop says he or the council are not opposed to spending money on a study, but they want to make sure they are not wasting taxpayer dollars.
