Partnership pulling together support for housing assessment

The various municipalities and organizations that make up the Regional Housing And Growth Issues Partnership are rallying support for an assessment of the area’s housing situation, their next step in a strategy they hope will eventually manage the out-of-control growth in the region.

“This is an unprecedented situation,” said Kiki Miller, Coeur d’Alene council member and one of the key organizers of the Partnership. “We need data to tell us where to get solutions.”

Today’s scheduled Partnership working group meeting includes an agenda item to discuss workforce housing solutions. Miller said the assessment will likely be addressed at that time.

One force behind the push for a housing assessment is the desire by cities and groups to put forth similar assessments. Officials from other cities like Post Falls, along with leaders of economic development groups like Jobs Plus, have been looking at developing their own housing assessment studies.

But developing that study will require coordination, not only to rally participation among different groups within the partnership, but also to satisfy regulatory requirements and fiduciary responsibilities among the cities and groups.

Coeur d’Alene, for example, needs to conduct a housing assessment in order to qualify for block grant funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“I think it’s great if we have the opportunity to partner on the assessment,” said Hilary Anderson, community planning director for the city of Coeur d’Alene. “One thing that will be really important to the cities and the county is to make sure the scope of it meets everyone’s needs, either through zoning code or some other requirement.”

Miller said a joint study would also keep the different jurisdictions from duplicating efforts. But Miller stressed that while she certainly supports a housing assessment that can satisfy a blanket of requirements for all its partners, she's equally interested in an assessment that does more than simply check everyone’s boxes.

“The challenges we’re facing with growth are obvious,” she said. “We don’t need a report that tells us that fire is hot. We need a report that tells us where the water is. We need an assessment that can supply us with the data we need to find solutions.”