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Boise staff find most zoning incentives fail to "pencil"; propose simpler menu and longer affordability terms
Summary
City presentation found most sustainability and affordability incentives in the modern zoning code are not financially feasible for developers. Staff propose simplifying incentives into a menu, increasing incentive value while lowering requirements, and extending affordability durations to 50 years for greater community benefit.
Kyle Patterson, director of the Boise City Department of Organizational Effectiveness, told the Planning and Zoning Commission that a financial feasibility review of the city’s modern zoning-code incentives shows most are not producing the intended results.
Patterson said the department’s consultants and staff compared the cost of requirements to the value of zoning incentives and concluded "the incentives just aren't financially feasible" in almost all tested development contexts. "For an incentive to work, the value of the incentive has to be more than the cost of what we're requiring," he said.
Why it matters: the city adopted a new zoning code in part to produce more affordable and sustainable housing. Patterson said the code’s incentive structure is intended to change developer behavior, but early data and developer interviews indicate few projects are using the incentives and many of the projects that do would have built the same way without them.
What the analysis found:…
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