Beginning in 1997, MCC tailored its articles, bylaws and mission "to improve the Madison community by providing low cost, not-for-profit cooperative housing for very low to moderate income people and to be inclusive of underrepresented and marginalized groups of the community."
The membership of MCC voted to sue the City of Madison for property tax exemption at a General Meeting on March 9, 1997.
MCC members testified in Dane County Circuit Court that non-students, including people of color, older people, parents and poor residents, were increasingly joining the MCC membership.
When authorizing the suit, the membership conditioned the lawsuit on any "budgetary savings MCC realizes from a successful resolution of our case will not be used to reduce house payments across the board by more than 3% in any fiscal year" and that "the line-item in the MCC Budget that allocates money to property taxes be changed from a fixed line to a variable one, to keep open the possibility of MCC maintaining some level of funding to city services."
[3] MCC continues to make annual payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) in order to pay for necessary police and fire protection.