Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) speaks before a vote on a housing-related bill in the state Assembly Tuesday. (Screenshot/WisEye)

A group of housing bills that Republican lawmakers have fast-tracked since they were first announced two weeks ago made it through the Wisconsin Assembly Tuesday — most with unanimous support, but not without criticism from Democrats.

In a floor speech before the Assembly began voting Tuesday, Rep. Kalan Haywood (D-Milwaukee), assistant minority leader, said the GOP housing package fell short of what might have been possible with bipartisan discussion.

“While there is support for many of these bills on our side, we are by no means satisfied,” Haywood said.

Haywood complimented the Republican chair of the Assembly’s Housing and Real Estate committee, Rep. Robert Brooks (R-Saukville), for his “willingness to listen and work together.”

He described bills enacted in the 2023-24 session as “a bipartisan housing package that we could build on this session,” and said that in the spring, bipartisan work had begun on a new round of bills, accompanied by “honest communication with both sides and with stakeholders.”

Those discussions stopped abruptly in June, Haywood said, and when the bills came out two weeks ago the results were “half baked.”

“There are some good things in these bills that may help create some additional housing, but we could have done much more,” Haywood said.

A series of procedural votes on the floor Tuesday surrounding one bill — AB 455, creating a grant program for condominium conversions from multi-family homes — was emblematic of the gap between how Democrats and Republicans viewed not just the legislation but the larger issue of housing.

In the Housing and Real Estate Committee meeting Friday, Oct. 3, Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) managed to persuade three Republicans to join the panel’s Democrats to pass an amendment that expanded the bill to include housing cooperatives, not just condominiums.  

After the amendment was adopted, Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) sent an email written in red to all state lawmakers of both parties, mocking Clancy’s amendment as applying to “communes” and criticizing its Republican supporters.

When the bill reached the floor Tuesday, the original author, Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Greenville), submitted a rewrite, known as a substitute amendment.

The rewrite included another amendment, from Democrat, Rep. Lori Palmeri (D-Oshkosh), giving tenants of a building being converted to condos the right of first refusal to purchase their residence. But it omitted the Clancy amendment.

“We had a brief and awesome moment of bipartisanship this last week, and then we had an all red email from Senator Nass,” Clancy said on the Assembly floor. “I did not realize that my Republican colleagues were beholden to him and not even their own leadership there.”

The substitute amendment, Clancy said, would “strike out this bipartisan amendment and just turn it into another handout to developers.”

Brooks, the housing committee chair, had announced at the Republican press conference before the floor session that cooperatives would be stripped out, calling the approach “very difficult to manage because of the financing mechanisms and other things.”

Clancy said he would vote for the legislation despite the removal of his amendment. “But it is so disappointing to have to do that because we had something better in front of us,” he added.

The bill, like most of the bills up for a vote Tuesday, passed on a voice vote.

Others that passed with broad support included AB 424, updating requirements for the rental of mobile and manufactured homes; AB 451, allowing cities and villages to designate residential tax incremental districts to help fund infrastructure improvements; AB 452, allowing land subdividers to certify their designs and public improvements comply with state requirements; and AB 456, making a variety of changes to real estate transaction practices.

A handful of measures labeled as housing bills passed with little or no support from Democrats.

AB 453 would require local communities to grant rezoning requests for housing developers if they meet certain conditions, including that the area is projected as residential in the community’s comprehensive plan. The party-line vote was 55-39.

Rep. Mike Bare (D-Verona) said the measure fell short of what could have been done and that it lacked funding for local governments that would have to bear the cost it would impose. The bill’s author. Rep. David Armstrong (R-Rice Lake) vowed to seek funding in the next state budget.

AB 450 would put off the effective date of Wisconsin’s updated commercial building code until April 1, 2026. Originally blocked in 2023, the new code was reinstated by the the Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) after a state Supreme Court ruling this July held that state laws allowing the Legislature to block executive branch administrative rules indefinitely were unconstitutional.

The current effective date is Nov. 1.

Rep. William Penterman (R-Hustisford) said delaying the code further was needed “for clarity” because builders had been planning projects under the previous code.

After the GOP majority rejected an attempt by Democrats to replace the bill with language that increased funding for DSPS on a 54-41 party-line vote, the legislation passed on a voice vote — but with substantial, audible cries of “No” from Democrats.

AB 366 would allow landlords to demand a written statement from a licensed health professional attesting to a tenant’s need for an emotional support animal.

“There are numerous people that have contacted us about the fraudulent means of how you can get a service dog,” state Rep. Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc), said at a Republican press conference before the floor session.

On the floor, Clancy criticized the bill for potentially harming people for whom emotional support animals are a necessity but who are unable to see  a health professional.

“To the extent that there is a problem, where we want to actually certify that some animals are supportive and some are not, we can fix that problem,” Clancy said. “But that requires actually talking to the stakeholders before taking pen to paper.”