TOWN OF GIBRALTAR, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – With help from special legislation, the town of Gibraltar plans to create the Door County peninsula’s first Tax Incremental Financing District.
The TIF would help finance infrastructure for affordable housing development.
Soon, the streets of Fish Creek and Gibraltar will be filled with seasonal tourists. But Bob McDonald, co-owner of Bayside Tavern, Coffee and Shops, tells FOX 11 without housing, businesses such as his will barely be able to keep up with the crowds.
“What I would like to see is housing that is attainable, not just affordable, because affordable is a very subjective term and we have staff here that can not find housing in Fish Creek.”
The town of Gibraltar is making plans to create affordable housing by putting in 102 housing units on this land minutes away from downtown businesses.
“Next steps are making the TID boundary districts. Creating a TID committee and then putting the financial component together to make sure that we have the increment that’s going to be able to be generated to pay off the debt that is going to be encouraged,” said town administrator Travis Thyssen.
Gibraltar has a population of 1,200. Thyssen says you need 3,500 people to implement a TIF, but the new law makes an exception for Gibraltar.
Thyssen says the TIF will allow them to fund the project which would otherwise be unattainable in cost for the town.
The estimated price tag for the infrastructure is $3.5 million. This includes putting in sewer lines and making a town road.
“We have to get that pipe under Fish Creek and up the bluff and service all these new buildings as well as these existing places that are up there, but with the TID, that helps make it affordable,” said Steve Sohns, Gibraltar town chairman.
Sohns tells FOX 11 the housing issue is nothing new for the peninsula.
“I think you can go anywhere and any business in Door County and you can probably find the same issue.”
“We’ve lost employees, really good candidates that have come in and applied for work for the summer,” said McDonald.
McDonald says the housing would need to actually be attainable for year-round workers. He says the main goal of the community should be to keep employees so they can serve the visitors who come to Door County.
Work on the housing could start within the next couple of months, with the sewer line project starting next year.
