BOISE — Valley County Commissioner Sherry Maupin worries young and middle-income families are getting priced out of her county.
The county’s median home price is over $800,000, and it doesn’t have enough varied housing, such as apartments, for young people who may not be able to afford a home, she said.
While counties may not be thought of as key players in housing innovation, and Maupin understands the hesitation to spend county taxpayer money on housing, she and other leaders believe counties can play a role in solving the housing crisis.
“The spread now is so great that without the county participating at some level, we’re going to lose our middle class and our starter families,” she said.
Maupin spent part of 2022 as the co-chair of the National Association of Counties’ Housing Task Force, which examined what opportunities counties have to improve housing availability, and what counties across the country are already doing.
The results of the task force’s work were published in July, and Maupin and Ada County Commissioner Rod Beck, who was also on the task force, highlighted its insights at the Idaho Association of Counties’ Midwinter Conference in late January.
Maupin and Beck offered suggestions on how counties can approach the housing crisis, ranging from streamlining county procedures and practices to considering partnerships to build housing.
STREAMLINING THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
On the procedural level, Maupin suggested that county staff revisit their planning and zoning procedures. Not only does this make it easier to move housing projects forward quickly, it increases the likelihood that the developer will have the resources to propose the types of affordable housing projects counties would prefer, she said.
“If you can make your process smoother to get through planning and zoning, it becomes much more advantageous for developers and they will seek you out and will build a different type of product than those being built today,” Maupin said.
COUNTY THINKING ABOUT HOUSING
Maupin and Beck also suggested ways counties can shift their thinking on housing projects. For example, counties ought to take a close look at residents’ income levels, and consider only approving housing that residents can afford.
If a county has land that is underused, Maupin suggested holding onto it rather than selling it, so it could be used to build housing.
POOLING RESOURCES, CREATING PARTNERSHIPS
Two strategies Maupin and Beck centered on help counties find the resources to support housing projects.
One way to do so is to hire a grant writer to apply for funding that supports housing projects, Maupin said.
“I’ve heard so many counties [say], ‘we can’t afford a grant writer,’” Maupin said. “You cannot afford not to hire a grant writer. There’s so much assistance out there, and they pay their way immeasurably,” she said, adding that counties should still seek out those kinds of grants regardless of whether they have a grant writer.
Another strategy is partnering with a city, nonprofit, or other entities in the community to pool resources for housing. Ada County was able to take $5 million it had remaining for emergency rental assistance and partner with the city of Boise to plan an apartment housing development, Beck said.
That development will be located at 1505 N. McKinney Lane in Boise. He noted that it is money that the federal government made available to the county, “and I think it’s a way better use than just paying somebody’s rent.”
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