What was once the world’s best-kept secret has been discovered. At least, that’s how long-time residents of North Idaho feel.

During the last five years, Idaho has seen extreme population growth with hundreds of thousands flocking to the region from across the United States to find their slice of paradise in the Gem State. No region has felt that boom more than the panhandle, especially in housing costs. 

While housing in the region’s metro areas has always been slightly more expensive than the national average, following the 2020 population increase, those prices nearly doubled. Ali Rabe, executive director of the Gem State Housing Alliance, said these extreme increases are the result of a supply shortage in the region. 

“We've seen, obviously, demand go up in Idaho, and that's really the root of those drastic housing increases,” Rabe said. “Especially for North Idaho, [where] you've got resort communities, demand is going up for people not just to move there, but to own their second or third home. So, housing costs have gone up in Idaho because supply simply hasn't kept up with demand.” 

While bringing more housing to Idaho might seem like a simple solution for such a massive problem, Rabe said there are significant barriers to increasing the supply. Rabe said many of those barriers lie on a local level, principally local zoning regulations, which she said are typically very restrictive. 

Many cities’ local zoning regulations funnel development down two tracks: large-lot single-family home development and uncreative multi-family housing, Rabe said. GSHA is working with local officials to reduce the required lot size for homes and allow for more creative builds, like duplexes or triplexes. 

“We think there's not enough supply, especially housing of different types and sizes,” Rabe said. “A lot of what we're advocating for is making it easier to build more housing, but, and then especially, removing barriers to building smaller homes, which could be at lower price points.” 

Rabe said that Post Falls was the shining example of a city working to rethink their development to increase. In recent years, the city has conducted a housing needs study and reduced its minimum lot size requirement for many of the starter homes, like cottages and tiny homes. 

The Panhandle Affordable Housing Alliance, whose executive director is on the board of GSHA, also worked with Post Falls to create the Miracle on Britton housing development.  

Farther north, Sandpoint made similar changes to its minimum lot size regulations last year in a similar effort to increase housing supply in the region. Rabe complimented the city on those changes and for allowing unique housing types like duplexes. 

These changes have been met with pushback from residents who have grown protective of their city and region. Rabe said Idahoans can carry an anti-growth mindset, but that it can lead to more large-lot suburban sprawl. 

“Hayden and Rathdrum tried to increase their lot sizes beyond what's already in code,” Rabe said. “A lot of that came from, like an anti-growth mindset, but just kind of an example of even code revisions are going in the wrong direction, right in terms of that large lot suburban development.” 

Rabe said examining how Idaho cities were originally planned has been eye-opening. She said numerous cities were planned to be dense with smaller homes and tighter neighborhoods, adding that development like that helps cities make the most of their space and protect Idaho’s public lands. 

“I would say that the influx of people here continues to cause people to kind of go against what our cities were originally built on, which was smaller homes,” Rabe said. "The more that we require only large lot development, the more that's just going to eat away our way of life.” 

In addition to advocating at the local level, Rabe said GSHA is working toward building passionate pro-housing coalitions across Idaho. She said elected officials tell them that they don’t hear from that group of people, and that GSHA wants to empower people to fight for more workforce housing. 

Rabe said the Boise-based organization is ramping up to be more active in the 2027 state legislative session.