Madison adds 386 new homes in May as housing demand rises

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Madison saw more than 300 new housing units come online in May, the highest month so far this year. The milestone adds to the goal of creating more housing as the population rises and as the city battles its own zoning restrictions.

City of Madison officials this week announced that 386 new homes were completed and move-in ready in May, the highest monthly total so far this year and the most homes added in a single month since last year’s record of 709 units in August 2024. So far, there were 908 new homes added this year, officials added.

The city has an overarching goal to support the creation of 15,000 new homes by 2030, partly driven by an expected significant uptick in residents in the Dane County region. The city aimed for 3,750 of those homes to be affordable and below market rate in the long term.

“A lot of areas in Wisconsin are decreasing in population, but in Dane County and the region, the population is increasing and increasing pretty rapidly,” said Jaymes Langrehr, public information officer for the city of Madison Department of Planning, Community & Economic Development.

The city expects more than 115,000 new people in Madison by 2050, a study showed. There were around 270,000 people living in Madison in 2020, U.S. Census Bureau data showed.

Madison watched the rate of construction over the last few years and projected population growth to come up with a housing goal for the next five years, Langrehr said.

The city had 138,000 homes at the start of 2025 and wanted to add more than 9,300 new homes, which will contain around 18,400 people, by 2030, the city’s housing tracker showed.

Of the homes added in May, 90 units were affordable homes for renters making 60% or less of the area median income or homeowners making 80% less of the area median income, officials said. Another 3,938 homes are under construction, 959 of them affordable, officials added.

The completion of Baker’s Place, a 14-story, 206-unit apartment building on 10 S. Paterson St. did much of the heavy lifting for added homes in May, city officials said. Madison-based Neutral spearheaded the mass-timber construction project, which was the first time the technology was used in the city of Madison.

“It’ll be interesting to see… if mass timber as a building material that becomes more common in the city, especially as we’re keeping an eye on tariffs and trade, if that becomes a more viable option for some folks,” Langrehr said.

There were 908 homes completed in Madison this year and around 12% were single family homes or small-scale development of less than 20 units, Langrehr said.

Multifamily buildings have delivered a big slice of housing growth, but building within the confines of Lake Monona and Lake Mendota can be a challenge. Neighboring communities are also expanding, leaving infill development key in Madison. Additionally, the city has development restrictions going back decades, which officials said they’re working on.

“There’s not one thing that’s going to fix everything, so that’s why we’ve taken a closer look at process improvements and on the backend, after approvals are given, speed up the entitlement process to help developers and construction teams get shovels in the ground,” Langrehr said. “There are a lot of regulations that could be sped up if we took away some of the red tape,” he added.

Staff in the planning division and zoning administration will look at the city’s zoning code to relax regulations and make smaller and middle-scale developments more feasible, Langrehr said. While multifamily development was a big hitter for adding to the housing stock, the city wanted to encourage all types of housing, he added.

In February, the Madison Common Council passed a package of measured to create more flexibility for homeowners looking to build and modify homes and accessory dwelling units, facilitate small residential infill projects and improve the city’s review process for proposed demolition of non-historic buildings.

In 2024, Core Spaces completed the oLiv, a 376-unit residential tower with 1,099 beds on the northeast corner of Gorham and Broom Streets. Findorff and Antunovich Associates led design and construction of hundreds of units to the downtown core.

Another student development, Chapter at Madison, delivered 165 units to Park Street and Regent Street last year. Another housing development, 519-547 W. Washington Ave., was planned to have 140 units and scheduled to be completed in spring 2024.