Emily Hamilton — Emily Hamilton is introduced as a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and she then identifies herself as an economist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
Emily Hamilton — Emily Hamilton of the Mercatus Center testified that parking reform can significantly reduce apartment construction costs, but it should be paired with effective on-street parking management. She used examples to explain how reduced parking requirements can lower housing costs while still requiring localities to manage street parking through tools such as residential permits or dynamic pricing. She argued that hourly-priced street parking would discourage unnecessary curb parking and help property owners determine how much off-street parking to provide. The exchange ended with a procedural note that she would remain for another question about regulation and housing costs.
Ms. Hamilton — Responds that the main building code reforms have been the ones experimented with recently and argues for more rigorous analysis by model code organizations.
Ms. Hamilton — Explains that Idaho localities cannot expand the residential code on their own and that state action would be required.
Ms. Hamilton — Explains that statewide ADU reforms generally do not cause major neighborhood-level change but can affect housing supply statewide.
Ms. Hamilton — Introduces Houston as a key research example of unusual land-use regulation and smaller lot sizes.
Ms. Hamilton — Responds that homeowners can use tools such as covenants or HOAs to preserve neighborhood character.
Ms. Hamilton — Says Idaho's median house price relative to median income is about six, compared with Houston at about three, and notes more estimates will be provided later.
Ms. Hamilton — Continues her explanation that Houston's new construction remains affordable to middle-income families.
Ms. Hamilton — Says she has not studied institutional investors directly, but notes they rely on scarcity caused by restrictive zoning.
Ms. Hamilton — Says ADUs usually do not significantly affect shared water and sewer resources, though permits may require lot-level improvements in some cases.
Rob Beiswenger — Asks about the effects of large institutional investors owning housing developments or homes.
Rob Beiswenger — Raises a follow-up question about ADUs by right and mentions possible data from Mountain States.
Rob Beiswenger — Referenced in connection with a prior question about ADUs by right.
Jordan Redman — A senator is being addressed as 'Senator Robie'; likely a transcription error, but the intended member is unclear from the provided list.
Madeline Clark — Identified as a research director who authored the study and was about to present.
Maddie Clark — Introduced herself as a senior policy analyst at Mountain States Policy Center and began presenting on housing supply and attainability.
Ms. Clark — Continues the presentation on housing supply-side fixes and regulatory streamlining.
Ms. Clark — Is asked whether she has studied household formation, divorce rates, and housing demand.
Ms. Clark — Responds that she has not personally studied divorce-rate effects but agrees household composition affects housing demand.
Ms. Clark — Deferred the parking question to Emily, saying Emily has more expertise on parking.
Ms. Clark — Responded that second-home ownership exists as a number but does not have a huge economic impact on housing prices.
Ms. Clark — Said second homes are economically similar to remote investors, have limited impact on prices, and that short-term rentals benefit families.
Daniel Foreman — Senator Dan Hartog asks whether changes in divorce rates and family structure affect housing demand and the number of households, and Ms. Clark responds to his question about how household formation and marriage rates relate to housing needs.
Emily — Identified as the person with expertise on parking and invited to reintroduce herself.
Ms. Hamilton / Emily Hamilton — Ms. Hamilton explained that housing prices include different kinds of government costs and argued that permit fees should be tied to the actual cost of servicing a new housing unit rather than acting as an added tax. She then extended that point by criticizing ballooning building code costs and long permit delays, saying these create costly deadweight losses for both multifamily and single-family development.
Ben Adams — Mentioned as attending a lunch presentation on housing affordability.
Van Burtenshaw — Senator Burnt is referenced in a brief aside about not being given 50 pages, then directly assigned to cover sections 32 through 56 of the same rule material.
Ron Taylor — Senator Taylor is assigned to cover section 57, with the assignment clarified to cover sections 57 through 83.
Doug Okuniewicz — Senator Taves was assigned the second rule, specifically rule 35-0106, and it was noted that he would handle it; he was also announced as excused from the meeting.
— The pro tem is noted as excused.
Ben Adams — The vice chair is addressed as Senator Adams and is asked to assign out rules.
Ben Adams — Assigned to cover sections 0 through 31 of the 0102 rule.