If Idaho Gov. Butch Otter and the Republican-controlled state Legislature truly are pro-business, as they frequently remind us, the time to deliver is at hand.
Businesses that are the backbone of small resort communities where real estate booms are under way are finding it more and more difficult to hire workers because of a lack of housing that employees can afford.
The cities of Sun Valley and Ketchum earnestly tried solving the problem locally with housing development requirements and in-lieu fees on new developments with proceeds going to affordable housing.
But 5th District Judge Robert Elgee declared the fee to be a tax, and illegal, because only the state Legislature can authorize taxes. Now the cities are refunding fees.
Perhaps state judges up the line in the State Appeals and Supreme Courts might rule otherwise, distinguishing a fee from a tax. But Sun Valley and Ketchum seem to have no stomach for challenging Judge Elgee's decision with legal appeals.
Judge Elgee has pointed the way: Cities must go to the state for a solution.
Blaine County cities and businesses therefore should form a partnership and descend on the Statehouse to persuade state lawmakers to provide a new source of funds for construction of housing units that will keep workers in communities where costs are otherwise out of reach.
If need be, the state should support a special tax law for resort communities, where the boom in expensive second homes is driving housing prices and taxes up and out of the reach of even the middle- and upper-income workforce.
Blaine County is not alone in this pickle and might find willing partners elsewhere in Idaho. In Valley County, second-home buyers and speculators are snapping up condos and homes because of the Tamarack resort. In Shoshone County, the former mining town of Kellogg is suddenly reincarnating as a new ski resort, where the price of new dwellings has skyrocketed to as much as $800,000.
The impact on average income workers will be as obvious in these communities as it has been in Blaine County.
To a large extent, some of this problem is of the state Legislature's doing. The law mandating how property is assessed has driven up the overall cost of housing with higher taxes. Remedying the tax assessment code would be a welcome first step.
But without state authorization to generate reasonable new local revenues to deal with the affordable housing crisis, communities being hit with soaring home prices face the prospect of watching small businesses go under for lack of workers.
Idaho's total economy depends on communities with healthy business environments—even in resort towns.
