City of Boise Housing Needs Analysis

Boise is Idaho’s largest city with more than 200,000 residents and a growing inventory of 90,000 housing units. In 2014, the City of Boise Housing and Community Development Division launched a housing needs analysis process and hired Agnew::Beck and RPI Consulting to lead the effort. The primary goal of the analysis was to describe current conditions and housing stock inventories while identifying gaps in housing availability, areas of concern, and recommendations for addressing these needs.

Agnew::Beck engaged in a “discovery phase” where a complete dataset was gathered, and significant outreach was conducted with key informants. Later phases included an in-depth analysis followed by housing recommendations in the final report. Data was gathered from local, state and federal resources to prepare the City for its upcoming HUD 5-year consolidated plan application.

An important element of the study was a review of Boise’s three annexation areas (Northwest, Southeast and Southwest), to show what impact annexation would have on the city’s desired housing mix (e.g., single-family vs. multi-family) (pdf here). Using zoning data, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and assessor data, a model was created to forecast this impact, with findings presented in both narrative and map formats.

Agnew::Beck prepared a stand-alone housing toolkit. This innovative toolkit identifies housing solutions for various markets including the chronically homeless, low- to moderate-income households, the local workforce, and those in need of market rate housing.

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