Main Street Ready-Made by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780870206955
Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society Press

The confrontation over the village budget had no sooner ended before another piece of dirty laundry was aired in public. A year earlier, in November, 1949, when it became clear that the PHA intended to ignore the concern of cooperative housing committees, the village board created its own housing authority under state law. The move was made in the hope that the PHA would consent to sell the village to such an entity. A Pittsburgh contractor had even agreed to invest $3 million in the Greendale Housing Authority to enable it to purchase the entire village. The Greendale Veterans' Cooperative Homes Association had also expressed a willingness to work with the Housing Authority on a “pooled purchase” plan.41

Unfortunately, none of the proponents of the housing authority scheme did the requisite homework on legalities. Nor, it appears, was the State of Wisconsin very clear about the definition and scope of such an authority. At any rate, one resident decided to foil the sale of Greendale by challenging in court the right of the village to establish a housing authority. The trustees were red-faced, since only by a stretch of the imagination could Greendale be said to be suffering a housing shortage. Although a circuit court rejected the plaintiffs claim, this decision was later overturned and a trial ordered by the Wisconsin State Supreme Court in August, 1951. While the Greendale case was being heard in the state courts, all fifteen of Wisconsin's municipal housing authorities were thrown into a legal limbo, and a $10 million housing construction project in Milwaukee was jeopardized. Needless to say, city and federal officials were losing patience.42 The bad publicity spurred the PHA to sell the project; the housing was to go first and the underdeveloped land at some future date. Acting on a suggestion by Congressman Clement Zablocki, the government chose to give the occupants first chance at their own residences at prices fixed by an independent assessor. Following this, the unsold homes were to be offered to veterans, and finally, the general public would be permitted to purchase any remaining units.43

Since little in Greendale seemed to go smoothly for the federal government, the problems surrounding the home sales came as no surprise. The residents continued to find fault with official policy. There was, for example, the obvious matter of the row houses: how were they to be divided? Kroening came up with a solution that suited the PHA but scarcely anyone else. The plan was to hold a lottery for those buildings in which the tenants could not agree upon the terms of a group purchase. As a result, some of the 208 families living in row houses were displaced and, even before the lottery was held, the residents were denouncing it as a mockery of justice.44

The row house problem was only one of several complications. Residents were adamant in their opposition to another appraisal of home values and to a replat of the village that separated single-family units from their customary garages and centered all such units on lots with attached garages.

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