Coeur d'Alene leaders weigh new state housing laws, local control limits

Bigger backyard homes, fewer city limits, and a narrower role for local planners are now on deck in Coeur d’Alene after state lawmakers approved housing bills that will redraw what can be built in neighborhoods across the city.

At a Monday workshop, City Council and Planning Commission members examined how Senate Bill 1354 and Senate Bill 1352 will change the rules once they take effect on July 1. Planning director Hillary Patterson told officials that the city’s control over accessory dwelling units, subdivision standards and building heights will not look the same after the new laws kick in.

The clearest shift comes with accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. Under SB 1354, cities must allow ADUs up to 1,000 square feet, which is larger than Coeur d’Alene’s current 800-square-foot cap. The law also overrides local ordinances and homeowners association rules that try to block them. Just as important for neighborhood appearance, the city will not be able to stop an ADU from reaching a height that is lower than the single-family house on the same lot, a change that could make some additions more visible from the street and less constrained by local design preferences.

That matters in a city already wrestling with density and building-height questions, especially downtown. The new law shifts that debate from City Hall to Boise, limiting how much Coeur d’Alene can use its own zoning tools to control the size and placement of smaller housing units on existing lots.

SB 1352 goes after another piece of local authority: subdivision rules. It opens the door for so-called starter home subdivisions on parcels of at least four acres, with historic-district exceptions. Patterson said Coeur d’Alene does not have many four-acre parcels, so she did not expect the provision to be used often. Even so, she said the council’s control is limited overall, a sign that the city will have less room to block or reshape certain housing projects as developers test the new standards.

The session reflected the frustration that has been building around Idaho’s 2026 housing package, which the Legislature approved in the closing days of its session that began January 12 and ended April 2. Council and commission members used unusually blunt language, calling the bills “dumb” and “not very clever.”

Mayor Dan Gookin has recently framed the city’s housing debate around “local control and practical solutions” while the affordable housing crisis continues to pressure Coeur d’Alene. After July 1, the practical question will be how much of that control remains when new homes, additions and subdivisions start moving through the permit process under state rules instead of city preference.