Town of Cedarburg, WI

The town is older than the city in its middle. The town's history page says the Town of Cedarburg became a civil town of Washington County on March 2, 1849, and was set off to Ozaukee County on March 7, 1853. The city grew inside it and later incorporated separately, so today the town wraps around the city on most sides.

Its best-known structure is the covered bridge. Per the town and Ozaukee County, the town built it in 1876 over Cedar Creek, with an original span of 120 feet and a width of 12 feet, in a lattice truss of 3-by-10-inch planks held by 2-inch hardwood pins, without nails or bolts. A center abutment was added in 1927 to carry cars and trucks, the county board voted in 1940 to preserve it, and after 85 years of service a modern span was built beside it. The county says it is the sole survivor of more than 40 covered bridges that once stood in Wisconsin. It went on the National Register in 1973.

Hamilton, in the town's southeast corner, is the other historic center. Its National Register listing from 1976 describes it as once the first stage stop from Milwaukee on the Green Bay Road, a place whose growth largely paused when the railroad bypassed it. Its buildings include an 1847 house, an 1854 Greek Revival house, the ruins of an 1860 store, an 1861 general store and an 1867 Italianate hall, many of them stone. The Concordia Mill there, a four-story limestone gristmill with a gambrel roof built on Cedar Creek in 1853, has its own listing from 1974.

The town keeps smaller pieces too. Its history page notes an octagon-style former schoolhouse from around 1845 to 1860 on Pleasant Valley Road, now a home; the 1887 Hamilton Schoolhouse, used until 1958 and now a quilt shop; the old Kaehlers Mill crossroads at Covered Bridge and Kaehlers Mill roads; and a 1996 barn survey by the Town Landmarks Commission recording barns being lost to subdivisions and age.

The Town of Cedarburg is still a town. The Department of Revenue's 2025 tax data lists it as "T Cedarburg" with 6,166 people, and the Census Bureau's 2024 gazetteer gives it 24.503 square miles of land and 0.174 square miles of water. The town's About page lists its neighbors as the City of Cedarburg, the Village and Town of Grafton, the City of Mequon and the Towns of Saukville and Jackson. Its main roads are County C (Pioneer Road), Highway 181 (Wauwatosa Road) and Highway 60. The town says Town Hall is about 21 miles north of Milwaukee's Marquette Interchange on Interstate 43, then 5 miles west on Highway 60.

The town and the City of Cedarburg are separate municipalities with different rules, and the differences are large. The town's 2025 net tax rate was about $10.97 per $1,000 of assessed value against the city's $15.80. The town has no sewer of its own, so almost every house is on a private well and septic system. Lots are measured in acres, and the zoning is built around keeping them that way.

Mailing addresses don't tell you which side you're on. Both use Cedarburg 53012, and some town houses on the east side carry Grafton 53024 addresses. On October 5, 2026, I ran the coordinates of every property on Movoto's Cedarburg page through the Census Bureau's geocoder: 18 of the 40 were in the town, including one listed with a Grafton address. The tax bill is what I trust.

The boundary itself is settled for now. The town's planning page says the town and city reached a cooperative boundary agreement in 2021 that sets a 20-year boundary: land inside the city's growth areas can be annexed at an owner's request, and land outside it stays in the town, free of annexation and city plat review. For a buyer on acreage, that is real certainty about what the land around you can become.

I split the town into five areas when I talk about it, because lot size, setting and price change between them.

Five Corners, where Highway 60, Washington Avenue and Covered Bridge Road meet north of the city, is the town center. Town Hall is at 1293 Washington Avenue, Fire Station 2 is just north on Covered Bridge Road, and the town's plans aim to grow it into a commercial and recreational hub with some mixed-use housing.

The subdivisions near the city are the town's one-acre neighborhoods: 1960s and 1970s houses on lots of about 0.9 to 1 acre along streets such as Highview Drive, Pioneer Road, Glencoe Drive and Devonshire Drive. On October 5, 2026, houses there were under contract at $449,900 to $675,000. Newer subdivisions such as Behrens Drive, where a 2009 ranch on 1.35 acres was pending at $995,000 with an $88 monthly association fee, sit at the top of this group.

Hamilton is the southeast corner, around Hamilton Road and Cedar Creek next to the city, with its stone historic buildings and a few older houses; an 1846 house on Hamilton Road was listed at $299,900 that day.

The Cedar Creek corridor runs through the middle of the town. This is where creek frontage and the canoe launches are, and where the newest estate lots are being sold: the Kaehlers Mill Reserve lots off Kaehlers Mill Road, covered in the estates section.

The countryside is everything else, mostly north and west: farms, woods, wetlands and estate houses on 5 to 30 acres along roads such as Horns Corners Road, Western Road, Granville Road and the northern stretch of Washington Avenue.

The town is almost all single-family houses. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey counts 2,241 housing units (plus or minus 159), of which about 2,213, or 99%, are detached houses. About 2,147 of the occupied homes, roughly 96%, are owner-occupied.

The ACS puts the median owner-reported value at $473,800 (plus or minus $29,408), above the City of Cedarburg's $422,000. It estimates about 58 owner-occupied homes valued at $1 million to $1.5 million and about 17 at $2 million or more, but the margins on both counts are about as large as the counts, so I treat them as a sign that a small estate tier exists rather than a measurement of it.

The age profile has two peaks. The median house was built in 1975. The 1970s is the biggest decade with about 549 homes, then the 1990s with about 358. About 344 homes date to before 1940, mostly farmhouses, and building has slowed since: about 108 homes in the 2010s and 14 since 2020. The town's comprehensive plan counts 327 housing permits from 2000 to 2022, an average of about 14 a year, and projects about the same pace to 2050.

Heating shows the rural side. Most occupied homes use utility gas, but about 244 use propane and 82 fuel oil, per the ACS. The Department of Revenue's 2025 equalized values put residential property at $1.54 billion of the town's $1.64 billion in real estate, about 94%, with land about 31% of the residential value.

The inspection list follows the type. On a farmhouse I look at the foundation, the age of the well and septic, the outbuildings and any old fuel tanks. On a 1970s house on an acre it is the roof, windows, mechanicals and septic. On a newer estate it is the septic design capacity against the bedroom count and the drainage around the house.

For acreage buyers, the zoning table matters as much as the house. The town's zoning requirements for principal structures set these minimum lot sizes. R-1 single-family lots need 80,000 square feet, about 1.84 acres. R-2 and R-3 lots need 40,000 square feet, about 0.92 acres. The E-1 Estate district needs 4 acres and 200 feet of width. The A-1 Agricultural district needs 5 acres and the A-2 district 35 acres. The countryside residential districts, CR-A and CR-B, allow one-acre lots but hold overall density to one home per 4.5 acres, with the rest kept as open space, and lots outside a subdivision in those districts must be at least four acres.

Two details matter on estate property. A second, smaller dwelling may be allowed by conditional use in the CR-A, CR-B, E-1, A-1 and A-2 districts, up to 30% of the main house or 900 square feet. And in A-1, lots under 8 acres are capped at 2,500 square feet of non-residential buildings in total, while lots of 8 acres or more have no cap, which matters for anyone who wants a large barn or workshop.

The code is being replaced. The town's comprehensive plan page says the Plan Commission held a public hearing on a full rewrite of Chapter 320 on October 1, 2026, voted 5-0 to recommend it, and sent it to the Town Board for a special meeting on October 19, 2026. The town says the update mainly adds mixed-use options at Five Corners and aligns the code with the 2050 comprehensive plan. The public hearing draft also limits ponds to 15% of a lot's area and 5 acres in total.

The town has run the numbers on what is left. Its comprehensive plan counts about 7,039 acres of developable land in its residential planning areas, about 5,217 of them in the rural countryside category, where the plan allows E-1, CR and A-1 zoning. At those densities, the countryside holds roughly 940 to 1,170 more homes at full buildout, so the large-lot character is built into the plan.

On any parcel, I'd pull the zoning map, the district's rules and any recorded conservation or open-space easement before writing an offer, and confirm with Town Hall whether the new code changes the parcel.

The town's waterfront is a creek. Cedar Creek runs through the town from the northwest down past the covered bridge and Hamilton, and frontage on it is the closest thing the town has to lake property. The town's parks page lists canoe landings at Creekside Park on Cedar Creek Road, the Cedar Creek Farms Canoe Launch off Robin Court and Krohn Park at Pleasant Valley and Covered Bridge roads, and says spring is the best and most dangerous paddling season.

The same page puts a duty on creek owners: owners of property along the stream are responsible for removing their downed trees, and the town offers help for owners who can't. On a creek lot I'd ask the seller how often trees come down and who has handled them.

Shoreland rules apply. The Ozaukee County Land and Water Management page says the county's shoreland ordinance (Chapter 19) and floodplain ordinance (Chapter 18) apply in unincorporated areas such as the town, to development within 300 feet of a stream or 1,000 feet of a lake, or farther where the floodplain extends. It notes that along Cedar Creek and the Milwaukee River the floodplain often extends past 300 feet. The town's realtor resources page points to the county's shoreland map, which also shows septic system records. Building, additions, grading and tree cutting near the creek can need a county permit as well as a town one.

Flooding is a current issue. The town's August 2026 stormwater update cites significant flooding events in 2025 and 2026 as the reason for a new stormwater utility. On any creek or low parcel I check the FEMA map, ask about past water, and get a flood insurance quote before the inspection period ends.

The creek is also contested. TMJ4 reported in May 2026 that the town board denied a proposed 13-acre private pond near the creek in February, then adopted an ordinance prohibiting ponds larger than five acres, and that the owners filed a legal challenge. Anyone planning a large pond on acreage here should start with that ordinance.

The Town of Cedarburg is where the Cedarburg area's estate market is, and it tops out below $2 million. I'd rather say that plainly to anyone looking for a $3 million or $5 million property: that market in Ozaukee County is in Mequon, covered in my Mequon guide.

On October 5, 2026, the town's top listings were acreage estates. A 16.06-acre property on Washington Avenue with an 1870 farmhouse of about 5,318 square feet, a renovated barn, a guest apartment over the garage and a pond was listed at $1,850,000, zoned A-1, with a listed tax of $14,305. A 28.57-acre wooded property on Horns Corners Road with a 1989 custom ranch of about 4,800 square feet and an indoor pool was listed at $1,550,000. A 6.1-acre wooded property on the same road with a 1995 ranch of nearly 5,000 square feet and a pond was listed at $1,249,000.

The next tier is $750,000 to $1 million: the 2009 Behrens Drive ranch pending at $995,000, an 1860 farmhouse with outbuildings on 4.9 acres on Western Road under contract at $899,000, and a new 2026 house on 1.54 acres on Granville Road listed at $784,500.

Land is the other way in. The Kaehlers Mill Reserve listing describes a seven-lot estate subdivision with more than 1,600 feet of Cedar Creek frontage, lots of 4.23 to 5.68 acres zoned E-1 Estate with shoreland overlay, septic-tested, with developer-escrowed funds for a future paved road. Four lots were listed at $335,000 to $425,000 on October 5, 2026.

I separate four tiers here. Creek frontage, with shoreland rules and flood questions, is the scarcest. Large acreage with woods or a pond is next. Estate lots of four to five acres in newer subdivisions follow, and one-acre lots near the city round it out. Listing language blurs "creek view," "pond" and "frontage," so I read the survey and the county shoreland map before trusting any of them.

Zillow doesn't publish a Town of Cedarburg series, so the closest index is the 53012 ZIP, which covers the city and most of the town. Zillow's ZIP index put the typical 53012 home at $545,932 in August 2026, up 6.3% in a year, and the top-tier index, which tracks the most expensive third of homes, at $778,280. For comparison, Zillow's August 2026 values were $566,235 for the City of Cedarburg, $659,897 for Mequon, $507,273 for Ozaukee County and $399,526 for Lake County, Illinois.

Those figures blend city and town, and the town's houses sit on far more land, so I lean on listings. Of the 18 town properties I geocoded on October 5, 2026, 13 were houses, ranging from the 1846 Hamilton Road house at $299,900 to the $1,850,000 Washington Avenue estate, and five were lots. Eight of the 13 houses were already under contract or pending, mostly the one-acre subdivision houses between $449,900 and $675,000.

That split is the market in one line: one-acre houses near the city sell quickly, while estates of 6 to 30 acres take longer and price one at a time.

Pricing acreage is harder than pricing a subdivision house. Two 10-acre parcels can differ in wetland share, creek frontage, zoning district, septic suitability and whether they can be divided again under the zoning table. I price a town property from sales of similar acreage with a similar mix of usable and protected land, and I treat a house on 25 acres as a different product from the same house on one. If you're running numbers, my guide to how much house you can afford in 2026 is a good place to start.

Coming from Lake County, Illinois, the closest comparison I can draw is the large-lot parts of Lake Forest and Highland Park, at a lower price per acre and with a lower tax rate; my Lake Forest guide covers that side.

The town's tax rate is one of its biggest selling points. The Ozaukee County Treasurer's 2025 rate sheet puts the gross rate for a town parcel in the Cedarburg School District at $12.36 per $1,000 of assessed value: $1.62 to the county, $2.36 to the town, $7.48 to the school district and $0.91 to the technical college. The state school levy credit takes off $1.39, for a net rate of $10.97 per $1,000. The east-side parcels in the Grafton School District paid $10.96, almost the same. The City of Cedarburg's net rate was $15.80.

Assessments sit below market. The county puts the town's assessment ratio at about 0.836, and the Department of Revenue's 2025 assessment level was 0.84. On market value, the DOR's effective rate for the town is 0.917%.

Two credits come off a primary residence: the 2025 lottery and gaming credit of $168.75 and the first dollar credit of $56.25 (Cedarburg School District).

A worked example. A $1,000,000 estate would be assessed at about $836,077. At $10.97 per $1,000 the 2025 tax comes to about $9,174, and after both credits about $8,949, or 0.89% of value. A $600,000 house on an acre would come to about $5,280 after credits. A second home loses the lottery credit. Listed tax figures can also include special charges, so a real bill may run a little higher than this arithmetic.

Assessments jumped once recently. The tax histories on several town listings show assessments rising 56% to 65% in 2023 and staying flat through 2025, which points to a town-wide reassessment in 2023. The town assessor is Catalis, with the 2026 open book on May 5 and the Board of Review on June 3, 2026. Wisconsin's real estate transfer fee is $0.30 per $100 of value. This is general information, not tax advice; your bill depends on the parcel, its school district, its assessment and your credits.

A new charge is coming. The town's stormwater utility FAQ says the fee will be set per equivalent runoff unit of impervious surface, with most single-family homes at one unit, and that the rate had not been set as of August 2026.

Plan on a private well and septic system. The town's comprehensive plan says the town does not provide sanitary sewer service and that almost all properties use private onsite wastewater treatment systems, which Ozaukee County regulates. These range from conventional and mound systems to holding tanks and shared cluster systems. Most of the town also uses private wells.

There is a sewer edge near the city. The same plan says the City of Cedarburg's sewer service area takes in some adjacent town land, including Town Hall at Five Corners, but the city has no obligation to serve town properties there. The town studied a water supply for Five Corners in 2008 and bought an eight-acre parcel along County NN for a possible future well, but no town water system exists yet.

On a well-and-septic purchase, I'd write a well water test and a septic inspection into the inspection period, ask for the septic permit, pumping records and any replacement history, and check the county's records, which the town's realtor resources page says show on the county shoreland map. On a large house, I'd compare the septic system's rated bedroom count with the house as it stands today.

Electric service depends on where you are. Cedarburg Light and Water, the city-owned utility, says it serves the city and a portion of the town, so the electric provider and rate can differ between two town houses. I check a recent utility bill.

Firefighting water is built around tanks. The town's public safety page says it maintains two dry hydrants connected to a pond and ten 30,000-gallon cisterns for firefighting, with a map of their locations. Distance to the nearest cistern and to Fire Station 2 can affect an insurance quote, so I'd get one early on any rural house.

Roads and ditches are the town's. The stormwater update says the town maintains more than 66 miles of road and 132 miles of roadside ditches, and its realtor page sends drainage questions to the public works director.

Most of the town is in the Cedarburg School District. The Department of Revenue's 2025 apportionment puts about $1.61 billion of the town's value in the Cedarburg district, about 36% of that district's tax base, and about $26 million in the Grafton School District. The town's schools page says a small portion of the east side attends Grafton schools.

Elementary assignment follows the parcel. Town listings I opened on October 5, 2026 named Parkview for the Washington Avenue, Horns Corners and Western Road properties and Thorson for the Kaehlers Mill Reserve lots, with Webster Middle and Cedarburg High for all of them. I confirm the district on the tax bill and the assigned schools with the district before an offer, especially on the east side, where the Grafton line runs.

The town is a Milwaukee-area commute. Highway 60 runs east from Five Corners to Interstate 43, and Highway 181 and County C run south toward Mequon and Milwaukee.

I ran free-flow routes on the OSRM routing engine, which uses OpenStreetMap roads and no traffic, on October 5, 2026, from Five Corners. Treat these as best-case estimates. Downtown Milwaukee is about 25 road miles and 40 minutes, and Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport about 32 miles and 50 minutes. Lake Forest is about 82 miles and 107 minutes, Vernon Hills about 86 miles and 111 minutes, downtown Chicago about 112 miles and 144 minutes, and O'Hare about 108 miles and 155 minutes.

That is well past 90 minutes from Lake County, Illinois, and I'd rather say so than shade it.

For rail, Amtrak's Hiawatha leaves the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, about 40 minutes from Five Corners. Amtrak's schedule feed for the week of October 6, 2026 shows six southbound trains on weekdays and five on Sundays, with a 99-minute ride to Chicago Union Station. There is no commuter bus: Ozaukee County Transit ended the Ozaukee County Express on June 28, 2024, and now runs a daily Shared Ride Taxi.

Local traffic is under study. The town's comprehensive plan page says the town and city jointly commissioned a 2025 traffic and access study of Highway 60 from Horns Corners Road to Keup Road, Washington Avenue from Highway 60 to Bridge Road, and Sheboygan Road from Highway 60 to Washington Avenue. A road project at Cedar Creek is planned too: the town's March 2025 exhibits show a replacement of the Cedar Creek Road bridge with a detour on Maple Road, Pleasant Valley Road and County I.

The town's amenities are outdoors. The town's parks page lists six public parks and two outdoor recreation facilities: the Korb Sports Complex, Pleasant Valley Park and Trails, Creekside Park, Hamilton Park, the Cedar Creek Farms Canoe Launch, Krohn Park and the Orthopaedic Hospital of Wisconsin Fields. It says all recreation programs are self-supporting, with no tax cost, and that the Korb complex added an indoor facility in December 2024.

Pleasant Valley Park and Trails is the trail park. The town says its mountain bike trails opened on September 21, 2013, built with the Ozaukee County Mountain Bikers, and that the trails are groomed for cross-country skiing in winter and used for hiking, running and snowshoeing the rest of the year.

Covered Bridge Park is the county park at 1700 Covered Bridge Road, about three miles north of the city, with the 1876 bridge, picnic areas, grills, restrooms and a new multi-purpose building with a shelter. The county says it is one of the most visited sites in its park system and is used for walks, fishing and photos. On a house near the park I'd expect weekend traffic on Covered Bridge Road in good weather.

Cedar Creek itself is the third piece, with three town canoe landings, and the Ozaukee Interurban Trail runs just east through the city. For restaurants and shops, the City of Cedarburg's historic downtown is a few minutes away from most of the town; my Cedarburg guide covers it, and my Thiensville guide covers the river village to the south.

The town's plan is to stay rural while letting its center grow. The 2050 comprehensive plan, prepared with the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and adopted unanimously on November 6, 2024, is the main planning document and will be revisited every 10 years.

The land is changing slowly. The plan's land use table shows agricultural land falling from 8,332 acres in 2000, about half the town, to 5,206 acres in 2020, about a third, while residential land grew from 2,724 to 3,129 acres and woodlands, wetlands and open land took up much of the rest. Building has run at about 14 new homes a year, and the plan projects 398 to 546 more by 2050.

Four projects are moving in 2026. The zoning code rewrite goes to the Town Board on October 19, 2026. After it, the town plans to update the Five Corners Master Plan to make the town center a commercial and recreational hub with some mixed-use housing. The stormwater utility is being set up after the 2025 and 2026 floods. And the city and town have formed a joint bicycle and pedestrian committee, with a plan due at the end of 2026.

The city line matters too. In September 2026 TMJ4 reported that the City of Cedarburg's Common Council denied annexing farmland along Highway 60 for a proposed 394-lot subdivision, which put the project on hold; part of that land would have come from the town. Under the 2021 boundary agreement, land inside the city's growth areas can still be annexed later at an owner's request, so a town parcel near that line has a different future from one deep in the countryside.

If road plans, a neighbor's land division or a rezoning matter for a parcel, the town's Plan Commission and Town Board agendas are where those come up; the planning page lists the plans and maps behind them.

The Town of Cedarburg has no police department of its own; its public safety page says the town is served by the Ozaukee County Sheriff, with a town constable for code enforcement. Fire and EMS come from the Cedarburg Fire Department, which the town and city fund jointly under a 10-year agreement running from 2024 through 2033, with the town's Fire Station 2 at 1350 Covered Bridge Road. I don't characterize any town or neighborhood. Anyone who wants the data can ask the Sheriff's Office or look up any agency on the FBI's Crime Data Explorer.

The trade-offs are specific. Every house is on a well and septic, and fire water comes from cisterns. Creek property brings shoreland permits, flood checks and downed-tree duty. The estate tier tops out below $2 million. The zoning code is being rewritten this month, a stormwater fee is coming, and land near the city line can still be annexed under the 2021 agreement. And by the router's estimate, Lake County, Illinois is close to two hours away.

The one thing I would never skip here is pulling the tax bill, the zoning district, the county shoreland map and the septic records for the exact parcel before anyone falls for a view of the creek.