BOISE, Idaho — We’ve heard from a lot of you about the housing crisis. Some of you say that all of this could be fixed with rent control. Rent control is when landlords cannot raise rent more than a certain percentage. Sounds like it could help make housing more affordable, but it's nowhere to be found in Idaho. Why?
The answer is in Idaho law (55-307-2) which is written as, "A local governmental unit shall not enact, maintain, or enforce an ordinance or resolution that would have the effect of controlling the amount of regulating rent, fees, or deposits charged for leasing private residential property." Essentially that means it's illegal in Idaho for cities and counties to impose rent control.
The State Legislature could potentially enact rent control for the whole state, but that's almost assuredly not happening any time soon, considering they're passing laws that go the other way.
Just this year, they created a new law that prohibits city and county governments from regulating application fees and deposits for rentals too. Also, while President Biden just proposed national rent control, there's very little chance of that plan passing Congress.
Rent control is out of the question right now in Idaho. But the Director of Housing and Homelessness for the Boise Mayor's Office, Nicki Hellenkamp, said there are other things they're doing, and other local leaders still can do to make housing more affordable.
"Part of the reason we have our housing affordability issues is that we don't have enough housing to go around. And that's not just here, that's nationwide. And so, our modernization of our zoning code was really an attempt to try to make it possible for more housing to be built in Boise so that we could meet some of that supply demand challenge. We also invest in affordable housing development, making it possible for affordable housing to come online for homes that will be affordable in the long term to people at Boise budgets," said Hellenkamp. "In addition, the City of Boise has done some work to try to make things a little easier for renters. basic protections, like saying, if you make a complaint about something that isn't safe in your rental unit, your landlord shouldn't be able to retaliate against you for making that complaint. So those are some of the things that cities I can do. And there's a lot more of course that we wish we could."
More they “wish they could” do includes rent control. But there are other things Boise is doing to help housing affordability. They're giving financial help to low-income buyers, through nonprofits like NeighborWorks and LEAP. They're providing eviction prevention help (the City of Meridian has done this too). They're cutting and sometimes waiving city fees for affordable housing developments. They're also allowing tiny homes and RVs in some circumstances.
Anything any leaders can do will help, because rent keeps going up. According to Apartmentlist.com, July rent growth in Boise was 0.9% That's nearly one percent in just one month. That ranks in the top 20 for larger cities across the country.