For the first time in decades, the city is setting straight how many people can legally live in houses in the Greenbush and Vilas neighborhoods south of UW-Madison.

The new information is motivating neighborhood homeowners to push for inspections and get quick action at properties suspected of illegal overcrowding. The city responds to complaints about overcrowding but doesn’t do, and isn’t planning, broad sweeps for violations.

So far, residents have asked the city to do inspections on 13 properties, and overcrowding issues were found at 12 of them, said city Zoning Administrator Matt Tucker.

Of the 12 properties where issues were found, eight complied with inspection orders, two are still working with the city and two are being prosecuted, Tucker said.

"There have been frustrations in the neighborhood," said Amy Roundtree, a member of the Greenbush Neighborhood Association board of directors. "I have high hopes about (the effort)."

The new information will also help real estate agents and potential buyers of rental properties know with certainty the legal occupancy of buildings. The more occupancy, the more profit for landlords.

Confusion about building occupancy in the neighborhoods date to the 1970s. At the time, the city, in an effort to encourage families to take root in the area, changed zoning to allow only two unrelated people to live in rental units in the neighborhoods. The city, however, made legal, or "grandfathered," units that had between two and five unrelated tenants at the time zoning changes were made.

The problem has been that decades-old paperwork showing where multi-tenant units are legal got scattered throughout the city’s record-keeping system, making it hard for anyone to know the rules for a given property.

In March, Ald. Julia Kerr, 13th District, asked for comprehensive documentation of the allowable occupancy of houses in the neighborhoods.

Now, the city is in the process of checking paperwork on all 771 properties. The effort should be done next year.

"It’s an issue," Kerr said, explaining that single-family homeowners typically get concerned about a crowded rental building if tenants make too much noise or litter property. "They’re asking the city to enforce the law and that’s OK."

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