Town of Port Washington, WI

The Town of Port Washington is the rural municipality that surrounds the City of Port Washington on the north and west. It is bordered by the Town of Belgium to the north, Lake Michigan to the east, the Town of Grafton to the south and the Town and Village of Saukville to the west, according to Wikipedia's town entry,_Wisconsin). It is not part of the city. It has its own elected town board, its own zoning code and its own tax rate.

It is small. The Census 2024 gazetteer puts the town at 17.7 square miles of land, a figure that predates the data center annexation described below. The town's own website describes a community of 1,583, and the Department of Revenue estimates 1,593 for 2025. That is about 90 people per square mile, mostly farms, country lots and the lakeshore.

The address is the trap. The town and the city share the Port Washington 53074 mailing address, so a listing that says "Port Washington" can be in either. On October 5, 2026, I ran the listings on a public Port Washington search page through the Census geocoder. Six came back in the town, including the two highest-priced Lake Michigan lakefront houses on the page.

Coming from Lake County, Illinois, the tax bill is the first number compared, and here it settles the question. A town parcel shows "Town of Port Washington" as the taxing district and carries a rate about 29% lower than the city's.

Lakefront houses listed at $1.2 million to $1.25 million in October 2026, the 2025 tax rate is about $9.71 per $1,000 of assessed value, town zoning keeps lots at three-quarters of an acre to five acres, and Milwaukee is about 38 minutes away.

The trade-offs are concrete. There is no $2 million tier here. Bluff lots carry a 75-foot or stable-slope setback that limits where you can build and add on, and every bluff needs engineering attention. Most homes rely on a well and septic. The fire and EMS cost is likely to rise from a low base. The data center and its power lines will reshape the land between the city and Dixie Road, and further annexation phases are planned. And Vernon Hills is about 109 minutes away in free-flow traffic.

I'd pull the tax bill and confirm the municipality, the zoning district, the septic and well records, and for a lakefront lot the survey and any geotechnical report, before falling for a property.

The town is older than the city it surrounds. The Encyclopedia of Milwaukee dates its founding to January 21, 1846, when the land was still part of Washington County. It originally included the areas that became Belgium, Fredonia and Saukville; those split off in 1847, leaving 21.1 square miles instead of the usual 36. The City of Port Washington incorporated out of the town's southeast corner in 1882.

Two crossroads communities grew inside the town. Knellsville, north of the city, began in the 1860s as a stagecoach stop, hotel and saloon on the Green Bay Road built by William Knell, and grew a feed mill, cannery, foundry and mink ranches. The Pauly Cheese Company, which sold cheese nationally through the 20th century, was headquartered there. Druecker, in the north, grew around the Druecker Stone Quarry, founded in 1873, which produced lime and cut stone into the 1920s.

The 20th century shrank both. Wikipedia records that the Knellsville cannery closed in 1955, the last mink pelts were sold in 1969, and in the mid-1960s the southern part of Knellsville was demolished to build I-43's Exit 100. The city annexed town farmland for subdivisions through the postwar decades.

That history matters to a buyer for one reason: the line between town and city has moved many times, and it moved again in 2025. The development section covers the latest change.

I read the town in four parts. The grouping is mine, from the geography and from where the October 2026 listings geocoded.

The first is the Lake Michigan shore north of the city. Wikipedia describes clay bluffs of 80 to 130 feet with ravines where streams reach the lake, and a low valley where Sucker Creek meets the lake. This is where the town's top-priced homes are, on lots of one to two-plus acres along roads such as Norport Drive and Weilers Way, with paths down the bluff to private beaches.

The second is Knellsville, at I-43 Exit 100 just north of the city. It has the town hall at 3715 Highland Drive, a small industrial park and older homes along the old Green Bay Road. It is also the part of the town that is about to get city water and sewer.

The third is the farm country in the middle and north of the town, around the Druecker area and toward the Town of Belgium line, with farmhouses and country lots under agricultural zoning. A large block of that land, between the city's north border and Dixie Road, west of I-43 and east of the Interurban Trail, is the data center annexation area.

The fourth is the west and southwest, toward Saukville and Highway 33, with newer subdivision homes and condos. In October 2026, a 5,359-square-foot house on Bay Hill Road and a condominium on Upper Ridge Road were listed there.

The town is almost all single-family houses. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey counts 650 housing units (plus or minus 139), of which 560, about 86%, are single-family detached and 40 are attached single-family homes. Of the 610 occupied homes, 474, about 78%, are owner-occupied. The survey counts 37 seasonal units, with a margin of error as large as the estimate.

The housing is older than the county's. The town's median home was built in 1965, against 1978 for Ozaukee County. The ACS counts 144 homes built before 1940, many of them farmhouses, then 104 from the 1950s and 105 from the 1960s. Building slowed after 2000: 67 homes from the 2000s, 19 from the 2010s and 6 from 2020 or later. Town zoning, covered below, keeps lots large, which keeps the count of new houses low.

The ACS puts the median owner-occupied value at $378,900 (plus or minus $41,319). Its value table has a real upper tier for a town this size: 91 owner homes at $500,000 to $749,999, 49 at $750,000 to $999,999, 15 at $1 million to $1.5 million and 6 at $2 million or more, the last with a margin of error larger than the estimate.

Each type brings its own checklist. A farmhouse can come with outbuildings, an old well and a septic system near the end of its life. A 1950s or 1960s ranch on an acre is usually due for windows, a roof and mechanicals. A bluff house needs a look at the slope, drainage and any shore protection, which the shoreland section covers.

This is the part of the Port Washington area that most resembles the luxury lakefront Illinois buyers know from Lake Forest or Highland Park: houses on one to two acres on top of a Lake Michigan bluff, with their own frontage and a path to the beach. It is not priced like the North Shore.

On October 5, 2026, a public Port Washington search page showed two lakefront houses that the Census geocoder placed in the town. A 1991 Colonial of 4,131 square feet on Norport Drive, on 2.2 acres with about 170 feet of Lake Michigan frontage, was listed at $1,250,000, about $302 a square foot. A 2022 contemporary of 2,781 square feet on Weilers Way, with 140 feet of frontage on 1.66 acres and a trail down to the beach, was pending at $1,200,000. No listing with a Port Washington address was at $2 million or more.

The price per square foot shows what buyers pay for here. The Norport Drive house works out to about $302 a square foot and the Weilers Way house to about $431, while a new lake-view ranch at Prairie's Edge inside the city was listed the same day at about $673 a square foot on a lot of about 5,200 square feet. In the town, the money buys land and frontage; in the city's newest lake-view housing, it buys a new house, a view and a small lot.

The rest of the town's listings that day show the range below the lakefront. A four-bedroom, 5,359-square-foot house on Bay Hill Road was pending at $899,000. A three-bedroom condominium of 2,800 square feet on Upper Ridge Road was listed at $536,250. A 1,750-square-foot house on Norport Drive away from the water was pending at $492,000, and a 1,332-square-foot house on Mink Ranch Road at $489,900.

Zillow's top-tier index for ZIP 53074, which covers the town and the city together, was $547,860 in August 2026, up 6.1% in a year. So $1.2 million buys the top of this town's lakefront.

I separate three tiers on any Lake Michigan search. Bluff-top lakefront has its own frontage and, if the bluff allows, stairs to the beach. Lake-view means you see the water but don't own the shore. Off-lake means you drive to a public beach or the Port Washington marina, about 3 minutes from Knellsville.

There is no clean public market index for the town alone. Zillow and Redfin both track "Port Washington" as the city, and the ZIP code covers the city and the town together, so I use the ZIP figures with that caveat.

Zillow's typical home value for ZIP 53074 was $392,360 in August 2026, up 6.1% from $369,800 a year earlier and about 11.5% over two years. The top-tier index for the same ZIP, the upper third of homes, was $547,860. Because the town has more acreage and lakefront than the city, its typical house sits toward the upper end of those figures, and the ACS median of $378,900 for owner homes in the town, against $296,300 in the city, points the same way.

The town has few sales. With about 474 owner-occupied homes, a year might bring a few dozen sales at most, so a single lakefront closing can swing any average. On October 5, 2026, six of the 68 listings on the Port Washington search page were in the town: the two lakefront houses, the Bay Hill Road house, the Upper Ridge Road condo, and two smaller houses near $490,000.

For pricing, I'd ignore averages and go straight to comparable sales of similar land: same frontage or no frontage, similar acreage and the same zoning. A lakefront house and a farmhouse on five acres a mile inland are different markets that happen to share a ZIP code.

Wisconsin taxes run on assessed value. The local assessor sets it, the Department of Revenue sets an equalized value for the whole town, and the ratio between them is the assessment level. The rate, in dollars per $1,000, applies to the assessed value.

The DOR's 2025 report puts the town's assessment level at 0.93, and Ozaukee County's 2025 rate sheet gives the ratio as 0.9276. The whole town is in the Port Washington-Saukville School District, so there is one rate: $9.71 per $1,000 of assessed value, net of the state school levy credit, with a lottery credit of $188.97 and a first dollar credit of $62.99.

The town's own levy is the reason the rate is low. On the county sheet, the town's municipal portion is $1.43 per $1,000, the lowest of any town, village or city in Ozaukee County; the city's is $5.75. The school portion is about $7.55, the county about $1.46 and the technical college about $0.82. The DOR's town-wide effective rate on full value is 0.901%, against 1.315% in the city.

A worked example. A $500,000 house assessed at the 0.9276 ratio would be about $463,800 assessed, and the 2025 bill would be about $4,504, or about $4,252 after both credits for a primary residence, roughly 0.85% of price. The $1,250,000 Norport Drive lakefront would carry about $11,261 before credits. The same $392,600 house that pays about $4,915 in the city would pay about $3,285 in the town after credits.

The DOR's lottery credit report confirms that credit is for a primary residence only. The DOR lists no tax incremental district in the town. Wisconsin's real estate transfer fee is $0.30 per $100 of value, normally paid by the seller. The low rate has a cost, too: the town notes that fire and ambulance costs are rising, as the services section explains. This is general information, not tax advice.

Because the town is unincorporated, its Lake Michigan shore falls under Ozaukee County's shoreland chapter, Chapter 19, dated March 4, 2026. The chapter says the county's coast is almost entirely steep bluffs and ravines with a high recession rate, and its bluff rules are the most important thing a lakefront buyer here should read.

New buildings, structures and septic systems in the Lake Michigan bluff area must be set back the greater of two distances. One is 75 feet from the bluff edge. The other is a stable-slope line of 2.5 feet horizontal for every foot of bluff height, measured from the toe of the bluff by an engineer or surveyor. On a 100-foot bluff, that line can sit 250 feet back from the toe, which can mean more than 75 feet from the top edge. Septic absorption fields must be at least 75 feet from the bluff edge.

Small accessory structures may sit closer, but no nearer than 40 feet to the bluff top, with no more than 200 square feet in total, walls no taller than 10 feet, no foundation and no plumbing. Structures needed for access to the lake, such as stairs, are excluded from that setback. Ravines have their own minimum setback of 75 feet, which an engineering report can reduce to no less than 40 feet. The chapter also caps impervious surface on regulated shoreland lots at 15%, or up to 30% with a permit and a mitigation plan.

For a buyer, the practical steps are the same on every bluff lot. I'd ask for the survey showing the bluff edge, any geotechnical report, the permit history for stairs, retaining walls or shore protection, and how the house sits against today's setback. A house built closer than current rules allow may be legal as it stands, but an addition toward the lake may not be.

The town controls its own zoning through Chapter 340 of the Town Code, last updated in December 2025. Its districts include an A-1 farmland district, an A-2 General Agricultural district, an A-3 Agricultural Transition district, an agricultural conservation subdivision district and three residential districts.

The lot sizes tell you what the town looks like and will keep looking like. In A-2 General Agricultural, the minimum lot is five acres. In R-1 Residential, it is 1.5 acres. In R-2, it is one acre and 120 feet wide. In R-3, created in 2011 to match the city's zoning in the area expected to grow toward the city, it is three-quarters of an acre and 110 feet wide. In the conservation subdivision district, residential lots run from 0.75 to 1.5 acres and must average at least an acre, with the rest of the land kept in farming, woodland or open space.

The city has a say, too. The town chairman explained on March 11, 2026 that under Wis. Stat. 62.23(7a), the City of Port Washington and the Village of Saukville have extraterritorial powers over land in the town that can affect land division and development. Under the boundary agreement, the city agreed not to use those powers inside the town's Knellsville industrial park.

For a buyer of land, the steps are to confirm the zoning district on the parcel, whether it sits inside the city's extraterritorial area, and whether a split you have in mind needs city review as well as town approval. The Ozaukee Press reported on March 18, 2026 that the town hired Mead & Hunt to update its comprehensive plan, at $15,350 for two of four stages over 6 to 12 months, because the existing plan did not anticipate the data center. Zoning changes may follow that plan.

Outside Knellsville, expect a private well and septic system on most town parcels, and confirm it on every listing. On a bluff lot, the septic location matters twice: it must meet the county's 75-foot bluff setback, and a failing system near a bluff is both a health and a slope problem. I'd budget for a water test, a septic evaluation and the county permit records before closing.

Knellsville is changing. Under the 2025 city-town agreement, the Ozaukee Press reported on January 22, 2025, the city will extend sewer and water to all of Knellsville at no cost to the town once service reaches the data center site. The paper reported on August 13, 2025 that the schedule calls for water to reach Knellsville by December 31, 2027. A Knellsville owner should ask how hookups will work and what, if anything, they will cost the owner.

Fire and ambulance service come from the City of Port Washington under contract. The town explained on February 4, 2026 that the boundary agreement locked that contract at the 2024 rate for three years starting in 2025, which is why the town is the only one in Ozaukee County that has not raised its levy for fire and EMS in the past five years. It also said the town will need a longer-term funding plan soon, since the city's department has moved to full-time staff. I read that as a likely future increase in the town's levy, from today's low base.

The whole town is in the Port Washington-Saukville School District, a unified K-12 district; the DOR's school apportionment lists no other district for the town. Wikipedia describes the attendance areas: Lincoln Elementary for the northern and eastern parts of the town, Saukville Elementary for the western parts, and Dunwiddie Elementary for the far southern parts, with everyone going on to Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Port Washington High School.

Port Washington High School enrolled 809." The district enrolled 2,415.

Because the town has one district, the school line doesn't change the tax rate here the way it does in towns with several districts. The elementary attendance area still follows the parcel, so confirm it with the district.

I-43 runs north-south through the town, with Exit 100 at Knellsville, and a short stretch of Highway 33 crosses the southwest corner between the city and Saukville.

I ran free-flow routes on the OSRM routing engine, with no traffic, from the town hall in Knellsville on October 5, 2026. Treat them as best-case estimates. Downtown Milwaukee is about 29 road miles and 38 minutes, and Milwaukee's airport about 36 miles and 48 minutes. Downtown Port Washington and its marina are about 2 miles and 3 minutes, Cedarburg about 12 miles and 20 minutes, and Sheboygan about 27 miles and 32 minutes.

To Illinois, the town is past the 90-minute line. Vernon Hills is about 90 miles and 109 minutes in free-flow traffic, downtown Chicago about 116 miles and 142 minutes, and O'Hare about 113 miles, with the router giving 153 minutes.

There is no passenger rail in the town. The nearest Chicago train is Amtrak's Hiawatha from the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, about 38 minutes away. Amtrak's schedule feed for the week of October 6, 2026 showed six weekday trains to Chicago, the first at 7:15 a.m., at 99 to 112 minutes. The Ozaukee Interurban Trail runs north-south through the town for bikes and walking, connecting to the city and to Belgium.

The town has little in the way of its own parks; its outdoor life is the lake, the trail and the parks of its neighbors. The Ozaukee Interurban Trail, a paved rail trail of about 40 miles on the old Milwaukee-to-Sheboygan interurban line, runs through the town, south into the city and on to Grafton, Cedarburg and Mequon, and north to Belgium and Cedar Grove.

The city's harbor and marina, with 220 slips, are about three minutes from Knellsville, which is how most town owners keep a boat, since bluff lots generally can't have a pier. Harrington Beach State Park, 715 acres on Lake Michigan with a mile-long beach, is a short drive north in the Town of Belgium. Lion's Den Gorge Nature Preserve, a 73-acre county park with bluff trails, is just south of the city.

For lakefront owners, the beach below the bluff is the main amenity. Access depends on the bluff: some lots have stairs or a trail, as the Weilers Way listing described, and others have no practical way down. I'd walk the path before making an offer.

The biggest change in the town's recent history is a land deal. In January 2025, the town board and the city council approved an agreement letting the city annex about 1,900 acres of town farmland, bounded by I-43 on the east and south, the Interurban Trail on the west and Dixie Road on the north, WPR reported on January 23, 2025. The Ozaukee Press reported the terms on January 22, 2025.

The town receives $150,000 a year for five years, instead of the roughly $20,000 state law would require, plus up to $50,000 for its costs. The fire contract was extended three years at the current $176,660. Knellsville gets city sewer and water at no cost to the town. The border agreement was extended three years past its December 31, 2025 end date, except for the data center land. Only landowners can petition for annexation, annexed land is limited to data center use for at least five years, and Knellsville cannot be annexed without the town board's approval.

The city annexed about a third of the land on May 20, 2025, WPR reported, and amended its plan to show all 1,900 acres as business park and industrial for later phases. Mayor Ted Neitzke IV told WPR that night that a second, and potentially third, annexation request would follow, so more of the land between the city and Dixie Road is expected to leave the town. Vantage Data Centers broke ground on December 17, 2025 on a $15 billion, 675-acre campus of four buildings with 1.3 gigawatts of power along Highland Drive, the Ozaukee Press reported. On September 24, 2026, Construction Review Online reported it was 20% to 25% complete, with phased handover expected at the end of 2027.

Power lines are the open question for town owners. The state made American Transmission Company restart its application in August 2026, and the Ozaukee Press reported on September 16, 2026 that ATC refiled with a revised preferred route, still crossing Port Washington and Fredonia, with review expected to take about a year. For any parcel in the town, I'd check the filed route maps and the city's future annexation map before buying. Land near the campus may see more change; the lakeshore and the far north are less likely to.

The Ozaukee County Sheriff's Office provides police service in the town, which has no police department of its own. Fire and ambulance service come from the City of Port Washington Fire Department under contract. I don't characterize the safety of any town or neighborhood. Anyone who wants the data can ask the sheriff's office or look up its reported figures on the FBI Crime Data Explorer.