Town of Saukville, WI

The Town of Saukville was organized in 1848, when it separated from the Town of Port Washington, according to Wikipedia's town entry,_Wisconsin). Its early economy was farming, and dairy became the main activity by the early 1900s. A rail line was built through Saukville in 1871 and later became part of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway.

The town has given up land twice to new villages. The Village of Saukville incorporated from the town's southeastern quarter in 1915, and in 1973 the Village of Newburg incorporated from land in the town's west together with land in the Town of Trenton in Washington County. The village has kept annexing smaller pieces since, most recently a 10-acre farm parcel for the new Saukville Elementary School, which Ozaukee Press reported on December 3, 2025.

What did not change is the land itself. Wikipedia describes thousands of acres of undeveloped bogs, coniferous swamps and old beech-maple woods, much of it now protected, and notes that agriculture still plays a major role in the town's economy. The DOR's 2025 report estimates 1,807 people in the town, against 1,765 in the 2020 census.

The town is large and thinly built. The Census 2024 gazetteer puts it at 32.23 square miles of land and 0.64 square miles of water, about 55 people per square mile. Wikipedia describes the borders: the Town and Village of Fredonia and the community of Waubeka to the north, the Town of Port Washington to the east, the Towns of Grafton and Cedarburg to the south, and the Town of Trenton and the Village of Newburg to the west. I-43 crosses its southeast corner, and Highways 33 and 57 cross the town.

The town shares the "Saukville, WI 53080" address with the village, and the address alone won't tell you which one a parcel is in. On October 5, 2026, I ran listings from a public "Saukville, WI" search page through the Census geocoder. Houses on County Road I and County Road O came back in the town and the Northern Ozaukee School District; houses on South Pheasant Place, Deer Pass Road and Hollybrook Lane came back in the Village of Saukville and the Port Washington-Saukville district.

The practical differences are large. The town's 2025 net tax rate is roughly $4.65 per $1,000 lower than the village's in the same school district, but town homes run on private wells and septic systems, the county sheriff provides police service, and most town land is zoned for farms and large lots. I'd confirm the municipality on the tax bill first.

The trade-offs are concrete. New homesites are limited to five acres and up, and riverfront lots are fixed in number. Every home relies on a well and septic. There is no Lake Michigan frontage. Power line routing for the Port Washington data center is still before the state. And Vernon Hills is close to two hours away in free-flow traffic.

I'd pull the tax bill and confirm the municipality, school district, zoning district, well and septic records and any transmission route before falling for a property.

The town has no neighborhoods in the subdivision sense, but it has four distinct kinds of land.

The first is the Milwaukee River corridor through the north and east, where Hawthorne Hills, Tendick and Ehlers county parks sit and where the town's older waterfront lots are. The town's zoning keeps two waterfront districts for these existing riverside subdivisions.

The second is the southwest, around the Cedarburg Bog and the Cedarburg Beech Woods. Much of this land is a state natural area or university research land, so the houses here sit on the edges of protected ground rather than inside it.

The third is the farm belt in the west and north toward Fredonia and Newburg, where the larger zoning districts apply and where the town's highest-priced listing in October 2026, a 120-acre estate on County Road I, sits.

The fourth is the village edge in the southeast, along Highway 33, Hillcrest Road and Orchard Lane, where the town meets the Village of Saukville. This is where annexation happens: the new elementary school site came from here, and a 90-acre conservation tract bought by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District stays in the town beside it.

The town is almost entirely detached houses. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey counts 667 housing units (plus or minus 106), of which 646, about 97%, are single-family detached. Of the 643 occupied homes, 526, about 82%, are owner-occupied, and only nine units are counted as seasonal.

The housing is older than in the villages. The median home was built in 1972. About 159 homes, roughly a quarter, predate 1940, most of them farmhouses; 117 date from the 1990s and only about 81 from 2000 onward, with wide margins on each because the sample is small. That reflects zoning: new building in the town is limited by large minimum lots.

The ACS puts the median value of an owner-occupied home at $397,400, plus or minus $25,102. Its value table counts 112 owner homes valued at $500,000 to $749,999, 31 at $750,000 to $999,999 and 16 at $1 million or more, all with margins of error close to the estimates.

Each type has its own inspection list. A pre-1940 farmhouse can have a fieldstone foundation, older wiring and outbuildings that need their own inspection. Any house here needs the well and septic records. The expectation I most often reset with Illinois buyers is that land is cheap upkeep: acreage brings a well, a septic system, long driveways to plow, fences and sometimes barns, and all of it is the owner's.

Zoning is the most important fact about buying in this town. The Town of Saukville Zoning Chapter, dated July 2021, sets four agricultural districts. The A-2 General Agricultural District, for land shown as prime farmland in the town's plan and the county's farmland preservation plan, requires 35 acres and 330 feet of width. The A-1 district requires 20 acres and 300 feet. The A-4 Rural Countryside district requires 10 acres and 300 feet, and the A-5 Countryside district, which the code describes as meant for a countryside and estate character, requires 5 acres and 250 feet. All four assume an on-site septic system and a private well.

The residential districts are closed to new lots. The R-1 and R-3 Waterfront Residential districts and the R-2 Single-Family district cover existing subdivisions, mostly along the water, with minimum lots of 40,000 square feet in R-1 and R-2 and 12,000 square feet in R-3. The code says no new lots may be created in any of the three after June 1, 2020. Every district sets a 75-foot shore yard from the water.

So new homesites in the town come almost entirely from the A-4 and A-5 districts, at 10 and 5 acres. That matches what the town's residents said in the survey for its 2045 comprehensive plan: in a January 2023 summary, 37.1% of respondents favored allowing subdivisions while keeping a 5-acre minimum, 17.1% favored smaller lots with resource protection, and 14.3% favored 1- to 2-acre minimums. The town's ordinance list shows a 2023 amendment correcting a building density error in the zoning chapter and a 2023 update to land division and site plan rules.

For a buyer, the questions are which district a parcel is in, whether it can be divided under that district, and whether any land is enrolled in farmland preservation, which carries its own state rules. I'd ask the town for the zoning map and any certified survey map before making an offer on raw land.

The town is the one place in the Saukville area with a real high end, and it is land. On October 5, 2026, the highest-priced listing on the public "Saukville" search page was 4002 County Road I, a 120.02-acre country estate asking $2,750,000. The listing describes a four-bedroom, four-bath house of 5,100 square feet extensively rebuilt in 1986, set far back from the road, with farm fields, two ponds, a creek, a barn, an in-ground pool and a three-car garage. That works out to about $22,900 an acre including the house. It had been on the market about four months, and the Census geocoder placed it in the town and the Northern Ozaukee School District.

Below that, the page showed the town's middle. Two houses on County Road I and County Road O were pending at $475,000 and $474,900 for four- and five-bedroom houses of about 1,800 to 2,235 square feet. Three lots of 5.05 to 6.12 acres on East Hawthorne Drive were pending at $290,000 to $325,000, about $47,000 to $64,000 an acre for buildable five-acre homesites, and a 7.02-acre lot on South Foster Drive was listed at $100,000.

Zillow's top-tier index for ZIP 53080, which combines the town and village, was $556,433 in August 2026, up 4.4% in a year. Zillow does not publish a separate town index, and Redfin's "Saukville" figures describe the village.

The honest picture: in the town, about $300,000 buys a five-acre homesite, $450,000 to $750,000 buys most houses on acreage, and $1 million-plus is a large farm or estate, with only a few on the market at a time. There is no Lake Michigan frontage in the town. For $2 million lake property in Ozaukee County, buyers look to the bluffs in the Town of Grafton or to Mequon.

Wisconsin property tax vocabulary is different from Illinois. The assessor sets an assessed value, the Department of Revenue sets a full, or equalized, value, and the rate per $1,000 applies to the assessed value. The DOR's 2025 report puts the town's assessment level at 0.78, and the Ozaukee County Treasurer's 2025 table gives the ratio as 0.777, so an assessed value is typically about 78% of market value.

The rate depends on the school district. In the Northern Ozaukee district, which holds about 88% of the town's value, the 2025 gross rate is $13.55 per $1,000 of assessed value and the net rate after the state school levy credit is $11.64, with a lottery credit of $183.28 and a first dollar credit of $61.09. In the Port Washington-Saukville district it is $13.82 gross and $11.91 net, with credits of $188.97 and $62.99. The town's own levy is about $2.09 per $1,000. The DOR's effective rate is 0.907% of full value, and the town has no tax incremental districts.

A worked example. On a $500,000 house assessed at the 0.777 ratio, the assessed value would be about $388,500. In the Northern Ozaukee district, the 2025 bill would be about $4,522 after the school levy credit, or about $4,278 after the lottery and first dollar credits for a primary residence, roughly 0.86% of price. In the Port Washington-Saukville district it would be about $4,376.

Acreage changes the math. Wisconsin assesses agricultural land at its use value rather than market value, so a farm with most of its acres in crops pays far less than a straight rate-times-price estimate. On the $2,750,000 estate, that simple estimate gives about $24,627 after credits, which overstates the bill if much of the land is assessed as farmland. I'd ask for the actual tax bill and how the acres are classified before relying on any estimate. The lottery credit is for a primary residence only, and Wisconsin's transfer fee is $0.30 per $100 of value, normally paid by the seller. This is general information, not tax advice.

The town's waterfront is the Milwaukee River and its tributaries, not Lake Michigan. Riverfront homes sit mostly in the existing R-1 and R-3 waterfront subdivisions, which the town's zoning closed to new lots after June 1, 2020, so the supply of river lots is effectively fixed. Ehlers Park, a narrow county park, alone has about 2,200 feet of river frontage, according to Wikipedia.

Because the town is unincorporated, Ozaukee County's shoreland ordinance, Chapter 19, dated March 4, 2026, applies alongside the town's zoning. It sets a 75-foot setback from the ordinary high-water mark of any navigable water, with a reduced setback for a new house between two existing ones of no less than the average of their setbacks and never under 35 feet. The town's own zoning also sets a 75-foot shore yard.

Floodplain is the other check. The river floods regularly enough that Ozaukee County is rebuilding Highway W north of Highway 33 to let it flow into its old oxbow instead of over the road, a project covered in the Village of Saukville guide. Any riverside parcel should be checked against the FEMA flood map, the county's shoreland and floodplain maps, and the septic permit, since a septic system near the water has its own setback rules.

The town provides no sewer or water. The zoning chapter assumes on-site septic systems and private wells in every agricultural district, and only the R-1 waterfront district mentions public sewer as a possibility. On any purchase I'd budget for a water test, a septic evaluation and the county permit history.

Fire and ambulance service come from the Ozaukee Central Fire Department, which the Village of Saukville's page says was formed January 1, 2025 for the Villages and Towns of Grafton and Saukville, with stations in Saukville and Grafton. The town's website links to the department directly.

Town Hall is at 3762 Lakeland Road and keeps limited office hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, according to the town website. Its FAQ says the town contracts snowplowing to a private company, belongs to the regional library system with cards issued through the Oscar Grady Library in the village, and is served by the Route 143 Ozaukee County Express bus from the Walmart lot in the village and by the county's Shared Ride Taxi.

Most of the town is in the Northern Ozaukee School District, based in Fredonia. The DOR's school apportionment puts $362.7 million of the town's $410.5 million in value in Northern Ozaukee and $47.8 million in the Port Washington-Saukville district, near the village.

Northern Ozaukee's main schools share one campus at 401 Highland Drive in Fredonia, according to NCES's 2024-25 directory. The district also runs Sugar Maple Nature School, a K-6 public school at 2200 Hawthorne Hills Camp Road inside the town, which enrolled 100.

The Port Washington-Saukville part of the town feeds Saukville Elementary, Thomas Jefferson Middle and Port Washington High. A new $45.8 million Saukville Elementary on the town's former land at Orchard Lane is expected to open in September 2027.

Assignment follows the parcel, and the district line sets the tax rate. On the County Road I listings I checked, the line put both houses in Northern Ozaukee even though their addresses say Saukville, so I'd confirm the district on the tax bill before counting on a school.

A large share of the town is protected land. The Cedarburg Bog, owned by the Wisconsin DNR and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is the largest intact wetland complex in southeastern Wisconsin, a state natural area since 1952 and a National Natural Landmark since 1973. Wikipedia's town entry puts it at about 2,200 acres, with two lakes, white cedar and tamarack swamps, and the southernmost string bog on Earth. A trail and boardwalk lead to a birdwatching platform on Mud Lake at its center.

The town holds three more state natural areas, according to Wikipedia: the 74-acre Cedarburg Beech Woods, an old-growth beech-maple and tamarack woods owned by UWM; the 24-acre Sapa Spruce Bog, a black spruce bog in a glacial kettle; and the Riveredge Creek and Ephemeral Pond area at the private, nonprofit Riveredge Nature Center, whose 61-acre preserve includes 50-foot dolomite bluffs on the Milwaukee River. UWM's 320-acre field station next to the bog is a research site not open to the public.

Smaller preserves add to it. Wikipedia lists the 34-acre Shannon Preserve, managed by the land trust now called Restoring Lands, and the private Blue Heron Wildlife Sanctuary, 92 acres on the Milwaukee River with trails and a wildlife rehabilitation center.

For a buyer, protected land works two ways. A house beside the bog or a preserve has a neighbor that will not be developed. It also means parts of the town will never hold new homes, which is one reason the town's housing count stays small.

Ozaukee County runs five parks in the town along the Milwaukee River, with more than 200 acres combined, according to Wikipedia. Tendick Nature Park covers 122 acres with a wetland boardwalk, a canoe launch, an archery range and picnic areas. Hawthorne Hills Park has 57 acres of forest with river trails and the county's public 18-hole Hawthorne Hills Golf Course. Next to it, Ozaukee County Pioneer Village is an open-air museum of 24 buildings from the 1840s to the early 1900s. Ehlers Park is a narrow 7-acre strip with about 2,200 feet of river frontage, canoe launches and fishing spots. A county camp ground with trails and a hall adjoins Hawthorne Hills.

Golf has a second option in The Bog, a private 18-hole course east of the Cedarburg Bog that Wikipedia describes as an Arnold Palmer signature design.

The village's parks, farmers market and Milwaukee River access in Peninsula Park are a few minutes away, and Lake Michigan is close: Port Washington's lakefront is about 13 minutes from Town Hall and Lion's Den Gorge in the Town of Grafton a little farther south.

The largest open question for town land in 2026 has been high-voltage power lines. The Vantage Data Centers Lighthouse campus being built in Port Washington needs a new transmission system from American Transmission Co. Ozaukee Press reported on January 7, 2026 that ATC's preferred route in its first application crossed the Town of Saukville, that the town filed to intervene against it, and that the town chairman said the route ran through the farm areas the town's long-term plan sets aside for dairy. The land trust Restoring Lands also opposed it because it crossed protected lands, and noted each tower would stand about 180 feet tall.

That route is gone for now. Ozaukee Press reported on September 16, 2026 that after the Public Service Commission dismissed ATC's first application, the company filed a new one that eliminates the east-west route through parts of the Towns of Trenton and Saukville and makes a south-east route its preferred choice. ATC estimates the system at $2.5 billion to $2.7 billion and expects about a year for approval and 17 months of construction. The town's own website still showed the older hearing schedule on October 5, 2026, so the PSC case file is the place to check current route maps.

The other pressure is the village edge. The Village of Saukville annexed 10 acres of town farmland for its new school in December 2025, and the 90 acres around it went to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District for conservation, so that land stays open and in the town. Elsewhere, the town's 2021 zoning keeps new homesites at five acres or more, which limits how fast the town changes.

For a buyer, I'd check two maps before buying land here: the PSC route maps for any transmission corridor, and the town's zoning and land division rules for what the parcel can become.

I ran free-flow routes on the OSRM routing engine, which uses OpenStreetMap roads and no traffic, from Town Hall on Lakeland Road on October 5, 2026. Treat these as best-case estimates; the town is large, and times vary by several minutes across it.

From Town Hall, Cedarburg and Port Washington are each about 13 minutes away, I-43 exit 92 in Grafton about 15 minutes, Mequon about 23 minutes, downtown Milwaukee about 29 miles and 41 minutes, and Milwaukee's airport about 36 miles and 52 minutes. Vernon Hills is about 90 road miles and 112 minutes, Lake Forest about 86 miles and 108 minutes, downtown Chicago about 117 miles and 148 minutes, and O'Hare about 113 miles, which the router put at 156 minutes.

That puts the town well past the 90-minute line from Lake County, Illinois, and I say so plainly. For Chicago trips, Amtrak's Hiawatha from the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, about 41 minutes away, ran six times on a typical weekday in Amtrak's schedule data for October 13, 2026, with 99-minute rides to Union Station. Locally, the Route 143 Ozaukee County Express leaves from the village's Walmart lot on weekday peak hours.

The Ozaukee County Sheriff's Office provides police service in the town, which has no police department of its own, and the Ozaukee Central Fire Department provides fire and EMS. 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.