From the Idaho Panhandle

Housing Market Moves Toward Smaller Quarters

By Cate Huisman, 9-24-10

	Sandpoint's new commercial zones.

The radio delivered some heartening national news earlier this week—The long-faltering housing market began to recover last month, as was evident in a 10 percent increase in permits to build new homes. And for people who plan for the future of communities, a particularly pithy detail was that “much of the growth was in the apartment and condo sectors, up 32 percent from the month before. Construction of single family homes, which makes up the bulk of the housing market, rose at a much more modest rate of 4 percent.”

This pattern confirms the take presented by Jim Charlier at the conference of the Community Transportation Association of Idaho (CTAI) in Boise last week. CTAI was started as an organization of public transit providers; it’s been focused primarily on local bus services but is increasingly turning its gaze toward planning for pedestrians and cyclists as well. Charlier gave several presentations, and a significant subset of them noted that baby boomers and millenials (people born in roughly the last two decades of the 20th century) are not looking for big homes on acreage. They want smaller quarters close to amenities.

It remains to be seen how this pattern will play out in Sandpoint, a small mountain town with a lot of second homes belonging to people who don’t need to earn a living in the community. But it meshes nicely with the town’s comprehensive plan and recently adopted code for commercial zones, which encourages the construction of apartments and condos on the upper stories of downtown buildings to accommodate anticipated population growth. This aspect of the comp plan has been met with a certain amount of skepticism over whether anyone would ever want to occupy such residences. It’s been assumed that people moving here will want the proverbial big homes on acreage.

But residents in downtown condos would have access to Sandpoint’s best amenities without having to drive. They could use the money that would have gone for gas, maintenance, and insurance on other things—perhaps a lift ticket at Schweitzer Mountain Resort. A new bus service will start up in November to serve Sandpoint and its northern and eastern suburbs, Ponderay and Kootenai, and is to include a connection to Schweitzer’s “Red Barn” parking area.  Residents will have an even easier time in summer, when they can walk the few blocks from their ”urban” digs to City Beach.

And without a lawn to mow, horses to feed, or a half mile of hallway to vacuum, they’ll have more time as well to spend skiing and enjoying the lake. So it wouldn’t be surprising if the national trend became evident in this lakeside town sometime soon.

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