What in the heck is going on with Post Falls? First they move into their beautiful new City Hall. Now they are possibly bumping their Urban Renewal Agency out of the new building, plus they just fired their Community Development Director. Something’s happening here…what it is ain’t exactly clear… (can you remember who sang that old song? They’re pictured above.)
Don’t forget–tonight the CdA City Council gives, oh I mean, “leases for 99 years”, the Harbor Center building and its 7.5 acres to U of I. The action starts at 6pm in the Community Room at the new Library.
The new city hall is gorgeous. I haven’t seen the inside, but the design of the building is great. And I was impressed that it cost only about $7 million, as compared to the 23.6 the new Lakes Middle School was going to cost, even though they’re not the same type of structure or use. One drawback is that Post Falls never took the new city hall to a vote of the people.
Comment by mary — June 17, 2008 @ 9:09 am
Did anyone see that Hayden is acting a lot like CdA? 4000 houses on the market and they approved annexation of 600+ acres of rural into high density for yet ANOTHER 1300+ houses. Cater to the developer and to hell with the wants of the people. Your paid officials doing what THEY think is best for the community! Can you say “URBAN SPRAWL”?
Comment by concerned citizen — June 17, 2008 @ 2:42 pm
Did they use the words “workforce” or “affordable” when talking about the houses?
Folks, what we need here are quality, career-level jobs, not cheap housing. Both the Hayden URD and the LCDC could, yes could work toward attracting those jobs. They choose not to. This “affordable housing crisis” is one of the city’s own making. They fix the problem by fixing the LCDC, not by building cheap houses that will be bought-out by speculators and turned into slums.
Comment by Dan — June 17, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
I disagree,I think we need BOTH affordable housing and good-paying jobs.If we were talking pre-2004-05
home prices I would agree,but the housing issue has become too big of a
problem and good wages alone, can’t completely solve it.Even with two income households.
In 2001 the median price of a home was $111,000 and now the median is
around $205,000,so the price of a home doubled in six short years.Even in this recession,home prices are never going to fall back down to 2001 prices again. So especially, since were in the throes of a recession,we need affordability in this area.I see Buck Knives have laid off 23 employees and Coldwater Creek laid off up to 50 this past winter.
If a ‘cheap house’is considered to be a $200,000 house,nothing wrong with that.I’ve seen some darn nice ones for that price.I know some people having a hard time making those $1200/a month payments though.
Comment by kageman — June 17, 2008 @ 6:34 pm
Kageman. The LCDC helped cause the escalating home prices. By artificially boosting the number of high-income homes, they inflated the prices of other homes in the region. This happens time and time again wherever this type of “urban renewal” is tried; read the article from the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Regardless, keep this in mind: Building low-income housing generally results in rentals. The only time it hasn’t is when a non-profit like Habitat For Humanity organizes and screens the homes and future home owners. I support that effort, but recognize that when government gets involved, things generally screw up. Big time. I honestly think that the best way to deal with the problem is to A) get the LCDC to stop underwriting high-end condos and B) get some high-paying jobs into this area.
Comment by Dan — June 17, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
What about infill? Do we need to keep expanding our boundaries out even farther? There are no restrictions like owner occupy that would keep these new eyesores from becoming rental slums. These developers, in most cases, do not even build to minimum code requirements. I know we have had this descussion before about moisture barrier and flashing and that the law was not adopted by CdA area until a couple of years ago. If you go look at Hawks Nest you will see the the houses STILL are not being built to code. This WILL result in premature decay. It will be nothing more than a sea of moldy rental slums.
Comment by concerned citizen — June 18, 2008 @ 8:51 am