Garden Homes Historic District | |
Nearest city | Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
---|---|
Coordinates | 43°05′49.6″N87°56′43.5″W / 43.097111°N 87.945417°W |
Area | 29 acres (12 ha) |
Built | 1921-1923 |
Architect | William Schuchardt [1] |
Architectural style | Colonial Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 90000669 [2] |
Added to NRHP | May 4, 1990 |
The Garden Homes Historic District in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is a historic district that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. [3] Under socialist mayor Daniel Hoan, the City of Milwaukee implemented the country's first public housing project in 1923. This experiment with a municipally-sponsored housing cooperative saw initial success, but was plagued by development and land acquisition problems. The board overseeing the project dissolved the Gardens Home Corporation just two years after construction of the homes was completed.
The Gardens Homes housing project had its start during the 1910 election campaign of Milwaukee's first socialist mayor, Emil Seidel, who ran on a platform that included construction of low cost, city-built, homes for workers. Though Seidel was soundly defeated in 1912, the city's second socialist mayor, Daniel Hoan, was able to get a project started to ease Milwaukee's housing shortage. The shortage, caused by rapid growth of Milwaukee's manufacturing sector, was worsened by the World War I-era moratorium on new housing construction. Because the city's housing shortage had started before World War I, and it could not prove the lack of housing was delaying the production of war materials, it was unable to obtain federal aid. [4]
After the war, Milwaukee's housing commission proposed a cooperative housing project. It was funded in two ways. The initial cost was to be financed by the sale of preferred stock in the Garden Homes Project, sold to city and county governments, and also made available to any other investor. The preferred stock was expected to pay a 5 percent dividend per year. The occupants of the housing would purchase common stock in the project, equal to the value of the home. They would put 10 percent down, and make payments over the next 20 years, including interest, taxes, upkeep, and other costs. After about 20 years, the preferred stock would mature and be retired, and the tenants would then own the corporation. At that time, the common shareholders could elect to convert the project to individual ownership. [4]
This concept was based on a similar plan in England, promoted by Ebenezer Howard's garden city concept from the Garden Cities of Tomorrow published in 1900. About 60 housing associations had been established there by 1919. Several streets in Garden Homes would initially be named after garden cities in England, including Ealing, Hampstead, Port Sunlight, Bournville, and Letchworth. [4]
With $177,300 of preferred stock sold, construction began in 1921, and was completed by 1923. Though 162 units were planned for, only 105 units in 93 individual buildings were built. The shortfall was caused by a failure to sell a sufficient quantity of additional preferred stock to private investors. City and county governments invested a total of $412,000 by the end of 1924. With 700 applicants for housing, all 105 units were soon occupied. [4]
Shortly thereafter, problems involving the annexation of the Garden Homes project by the city ensued. Legal battles delayed street improvements in the project. After annexation, the city assessed the tenants for street and storm sewer improvements. Many residents had thought their monthly payments included streets and sewers. The city did not. There were also disagreements about the actual costs of the homes, which has generally been built for less than the cost of a comparable home elsewhere in the city. Tenants were also unsure about the value of private improvements to their units if the plan was not eventually converted to individual ownership. [4]
By June 1925, state lawmakers had voted to permit the sale, rather than lease, of the project houses. Soon thereafter, the Garden Homes project board of directors disbanded the cooperative, allowing the tenants to purchase their units. A problem-filled ten years were spent selling homes, paying off loans, and arguing over tax assessments on profits of selling the houses. By the late 1930s, only 40 percent of the original occupants still lived in Garden Homes. Though the process was fractious, the cooperative remained solvent and all bills were paid. By the 1920s, the streets, originally named after English garden cities, had been given names such as Congress, 25th, and 26th streets to conform Milwaukee's city street names. [4]
The district includes all of the 93 original buildings, comprising 105 housing units; and the original Garden Homes park, a green space between the north and southbound lanes of north Twenty-sixth street at Port Sunlight Way and West Atkinson Avenue. Presently the Garden Homes Neighborhood Association is working to restore the neighborhood to its original beauty. The buildings have a similar look, to save on construction cost. They are based on one of nine exterior designs which were varied by reversing the floor plans and switching from front to side gables. The houses are two-story, rectangular, front or side-gabled cottages in a simplified Colonial Revival style. [4]
Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a combination thereof. The details, terminology, definitions of poverty, and other criteria for allocation may vary within different contexts, but the right to rent such a home is generally rationed through some form of means-testing or through administrative measures of housing needs. One can regard social housing as a potential remedy for housing inequality. Within the OECD, social housing represents an average of 7% of national housing stock (2020), ranging from ~34% in the Netherlands to less than 1% in Colombia.
An apartment, flat, or unit is a self-contained housing unit that occupies part of a building, generally on a single storey. There are many names for these overall buildings. The housing tenure of apartments also varies considerably, from large-scale public housing, to owner occupancy within what is legally a condominium or leasehold, to tenants renting from a private landlord.
In the United States, rent control refers to laws or ordinances that set price controls on the rent of residential housing to function as a price ceiling. More loosely, "rent control" describes several types of price control:
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) is a federal program in the United States that awards tax credits to housing developers in exchange for agreeing to reserve a certain fraction of rent-restricted units for lower-income households. The program was created under the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86) to incentivize the use of private equity in developing affordable housing. Projects developed with LIHTC credits must maintain a certain percentage of affordable units for a set period of time, typically 30 years, though there is a "qualified contract" process that can allow property owners to opt out after 15 years. The maximum rent that can be charged for designated affordable units is based on Area Median Income (AMI); over 50% of residents in LIHTC properties are considered Extremely Low-Income. Less than 10% of current credit expenditures are claimed by individual investors.
A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity which owns real estate consisting of one or more residential buildings. The entity is usually a cooperative or a corporation and constitutes a form of housing tenure. Typically housing cooperatives are owned by shareholders but in some cases they can be owned by a non-profit organization. They are a distinctive form of home ownership that have many characteristics that differ from other residential arrangements such as single family home ownership, condominiums and renting.
Daniel Webster Hoan was an American politician who served as the 32nd Mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1916 to 1940. A lawyer who had served as Milwaukee City Attorney from 1910 to 1916, Hoan was a prominent figure in Socialist politics and Milwaukee's second Socialist mayor. His 24-year administration remains the longest continuous Socialist administration in United States history. A panel of 69 scholars in 1993 ranked him among the ten best mayors in American history.
The Dunbar Apartments, also known as the Paul Laurence Dunbar Garden Apartments or Dunbar Garden Apartments, is a complex of buildings located on West 149th and West 150th Streets between Frederick Douglass Boulevard/Macombs Place and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. They were built by John D. Rockefeller Jr. from 1926 to 1928 to provide housing for African Americans, and was the first large cooperative aimed at that demographic. The buildings were designed by architect Andrew J. Thomas and were named in honor of the noted African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Cooperative Village is a community of housing cooperatives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The cooperatives are centered on Grand Street in an area south of the entrance ramp to the Williamsburg Bridge and west of the FDR Drive. Combined, the four cooperatives have 4,500 apartments in twelve buildings.
Sewer socialism refers to the American socialist movement that centered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from around 1892 to 1960. The moniker was coined by Morris Hillquit at the 1932 Milwaukee convention of the Socialist Party of America as a commentary on the Milwaukee socialists and their perpetual boasting about the excellent public sewer system in the city.
Capitol View is a neighborhood located in southeast Washington, D.C., in the United States. It is bounded by East Capitol Street to the north, Central Avenue SE to the southwest and south, and Southern Avenue SE to the southeast.
Marshall Heights is a residential neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C. It is bounded by East Capitol Street, Central Avenue SE, Southern Avenue, Fitch Street SE, and Benning Road SE. It was an undeveloped rural area occupied by extensive African American shanty towns, but the neighborhood received nationwide attention after a visit by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1934, which led to extensive infrastructure improvements and development for the first time. In the 1950s, Marshall Heights residents defeated national legislation designed to raze and redevelop the neighborhood. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom visited the area in 1991, at a time when Marshall Heights was in the throes of a violent crack cocaine epidemic. Limited redevelopment has occurred in the neighborhood, which was the site of two notorious child murders in 1973.
Penn South, officially known as Mutual Redevelopment Houses and formerly Penn Station South, is a limited-equity housing cooperative development located between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and West 23rd and 29th Streets, in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The complex has 2,820 units in ten 22-story buildings. Penn South is so named because of its location southwest of New York Penn Station.
Albert Eugene Cobo was an American politician who served as mayor of Detroit from 1950 to 1957.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin's history, which includes over 160 years of immigration, politics, and industry, has given it a distinctive heritage.
Rent regulation in New York is a means of limiting the amount of rent charged on dwellings. Rent control and rent stabilization are two programs used in parts of New York state. In addition to controlling rent, the system also prescribes rights and obligations for tenants and landlords.
The Greenbelt Historic District is a national historic district located in Greenbelt, Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The district preserves the center of one of the few examples of the Garden city movement in the United States. With its sister cities of Greenhills, Ohio and Greendale, Wisconsin, Greenbelt was intended to be a "new town" that would start with a clean slate to do away with problems of urbanism in favor of a suburban ideal. Along with the never-commenced town of Greenbrook, New Jersey, the new towns were part of the New Deal public works programs.
The Martin Drive neighborhood of Milwaukee is a residential district on the west side of the city. It is named for the local 19th-century politician Morgan Lewis Martin. Housing development started in the 1920s around two breweries. The area has benefited from local improvement programs and community activities since the 1990s.
Housing in the United Kingdom represents the largest non-financial asset class in the UK; its overall net value passed the £5 trillion mark in 2014. Housing includes modern and traditional styles. About 30% of homes are owned outright by their occupants, and a further 40% are owner-occupied on a mortgage. About 18% are social housing of some kind, and the remaining 12% are privately rented.
Historic Seaside Village Co-operative encompasses a primarily residential area in the South End of Bridgeport, Connecticut. It is bounded on the east by Iranistan Avenue, the north by South Avenue, the south by Forest Court and by the west by Alsace Street. The property consists of a densely built collection of brick rowhouses, arranged in irregular combinations. The village was developed during World War I to alleviate a housing shortage caused by an influx of workers hired to work in the city's munitions factories. It is a good example of an early government-funded project of this type, and was a collaborative design effort by R. Clipston Sturgis, Skinner & Walker, and Arthur Shurtleff. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
Affordable housing is housing that is deemed affordable to those with a median household income as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. A general rule is no more than 30% of gross monthly income should be spent on housing, to be considered affordable as the challenges of promoting affordable housing varies by location.