Legislative committee explores affordable housing in Sandpoint

Presentations include land trust, deed-restricted housing models

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

The interim Idaho Legislature committee on land use and housing — which has been meeting around the state over the summer — convened Aug. 14 at Sandpoint City Hall with a special focus on affordable housing.

Co-chaired by Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, and Rep. Jordan Redman, R-Coeur d’Alene, the committee’s agenda in Sandpoint included presentations by Kaniksu Land Trust Executive Director Katie Egland Cox and Maggie Lyons, who serves as executive director of the Panhandle Affordable Housing Alliance.

Representatives from the Idaho Chapter of the American Planning Association also presented, as well as Coeur d’Alene Councilor Kiki Miller, who also founded the Housing Solutions Partnership. The former chair of the Montana Housing Task Force and a representative of the Coeur d’Alene Vacation Rental Alliance rounded out the presentations.

“I just thought it was a great opportunity to let some of our Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint entities, who have been doing this work, to showcase what they’ve been doing,” Woodward told the Reader.

The goal of the committee, which will meet one more time in Boise in September, is to compile a report on best practices related to land use planning and solutions for providing affordable housing from around the state, with subgroups that will return with specific proposals.

Whether those findings make their way into legislation remains to be seen. For his part, Woodward said that he’s more interested in the report serving as a resource for communities, who can tailor the ideas gleaned by the committee to their specific needs.

“If we need to do something through the Legislature, I’m always cautious because I want to make sure it fits for all communities,” he said.

“I’ve been amazed at the amount of interest in the topic of affordable housing,” Woodward added. “People understand it’s an issue and want to work toward a solution, and I’m happy to be a part of that.”

Sandpoint Mayor Jeremy Grimm serves on the committee and, as a professional land use planner and development consultant, said he was able to “contribute unique and important observations about the barriers and challenges to affordability and affordable housing in our area.”

“My practical local experience — both between Whiskey Rock Planning and my role as the mayor — I’m seeing the marketplace work,” he told the Reader. “I’m seeing private developers running to the market to put up housing.”

During the committee meeting Aug. 14, Grimm took the opportunity to emphasize that while Sandpoint is technically regarded as a “resort community,” “I disdain that title because we are a mountain town with one of the most diverse economies you’ll find in any kind of mountain town, with aerospace, food manufacturing, computer analytics, lots of aircraft manufacturing.”

Yet, with real estate prices among the highest in Idaho — which is already ranked among the more unaffordable states in the nation — “It’s a real struggle to keep that economy alive,” Grimm told the committee.

“The salient point is that our employers are struggling tremendously [with] finding housing to grow their workforce here,” he said. “This subject really resonates in Sandpoint.”

Leading off the presentations at the committee meeting, which lasted for more than five hours, was Katie Egland Cox, executive director of the Kaniksu Land Trust, who illustrated the success of the Village at River View housing development in Priest River.

She said the first home in the Village at River View was due to close on the same day as the committee’s meeting, and marked a major milestone in the project, which began in 2022.

Partnering with LEAP Housing and the Bonner Community Housing Authority, KLT brought the Village at River View to market using a land trust model in which homebuyers purchase and hold title to the home and improvements, while the trust leases the land through a 99-year, inheritable and renewable agreement.

At resale, homeowners keep the earned equity plus a share of the market appreciation. Meanwhile, the home remains in the trust and continues to be affordable for the next buyer.

What’s “affordable,” however, has long been a point of debate. KLT and its partners determined that homes in the Village at River View — which are three-bedroom, two-bathroom and about 1,500 square feet — should be priced for buyers who earn at or below 120% of the area median income.

In hard numbers, that comes to a target price of about $270,000, with a household of four earning between $62,400-$103,920 per year at 80% to 120% of AMI, respectively.

KLT, LEAP and BCHA leveraged substantial private donations — totalling about $460,000 — accounting for between 25% and 30% of the project’s capital. That’s not sustainable for future developments using the same model, said Cox, who suggested a number of changes to local and state policies that could help lessen the financial burden.

Those included waiving or reducing impact fees for affordable housing developments, eliminating or deferring permit fees — with preference for nonprofit-led projects — and waiving or reducing property taxes on lands held in trust.

In the absence of those fixes, Cox suggested to the committee that temporary exemptions of fees and taxes could be put in place during construction, deferring taxes for between one and 15 years post-occupancy, and removing minimum parking requirements for workforce housing projects, especially near downtown or transit routes.

Other proposals included eliminating density caps that prevent small-scale, multi-family developments in residential zones; creating overlays or conditional use allowance for affordable housing; and offering variances in exchange for public benefits such as affordability, green building or mixed-use space.

Cox said the land trust model isn’t “the be all and end all for all housing issues, but it is one tool in the toolbox.”

Grimm told the Reader that he appreciated the structure of the Village at River View model, saying, “There’s no silver bullet, it’s unique to each jurisdiction and community, and I think these solutions that the private, nonprofit sector are coming up with are incrementally moving the needle and providing a solution.” 

What’s more, he added, “I would be more than interested to see if there are parcels of land that are owned by the city or the city’s utility that we could contribute to one of these models, where the land is decoupled from the structure — that land trust model.”

Also on the agenda Aug. 14 was Maggie Lyons, of the Panhandle Affordable Housing Association, who presented a different — though similar — solution involving deed-restricted ownership that includes both the land and the home, which is playing out in Kootenai County with the Miracle on Britton project in Post Falls.

Twenty homes have been sold so far, and five buyers have already moved in with another five slated to take occupancy by the end of the month. By next summer, Lyons said 28 families will be in homes priced for buyers who earn between 100% and 130% of AMI. 

All the lots are selling on average $50,000 below the market value, with prices ranging from $292,000 to $450,000.

Nonprofit PAHA is raising more than $1 million to underwrite costs for the land, construction and regulatory fees. Fundraising has come from foundations, banks and private individuals, with those dollars intended to offset costs for developers, who have seen their own labor and materials costs skyrocket in recent years, forcing prices ever higher.

“We believe the main purpose of Britton is to be a blueprint for this community and for the state to be able to unleash the private market for builders and developers to build these homes,” Lyons said. “That is the only way we will get the inventory that we need.”

Download and watch the entire 2025 Land Use and Housing Study Committee presentation at legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2025/interim/lhsc.