Housing boom spawns growing pains in Blackfoot

The town that bills itself as the potato capital of the world has growing pains. As one of the few places along the I-15 corridor with buildable land left, Blackfoot is exploding.

“There are hundreds — and that’s not an exaggeration — hundreds of new houses, townhouses and other housing in the planning stages, permitted or being built in the city right now,” Blackfoot Mayor Marc Carroll told the Idaho Business Review. “I, for one, am happy to see this.” He went on to relate that one of Blackfoot’s biggest employer had skilled welders turn down the firm’s employment offers because of the lack of affordable housing.

Housing is already an issue in eastern Idaho but new technology jobs will soon be added to the area, which will stress the housing market even more. The Department of Energy announced the award of the $1.4 billion small modular reactor project in October 2020. The project will be built at the Idaho National Laboratory Site in the Arco Desert. According to the Bingham County Commissioners, they expect the project to create 5,000 direct and indirect jobs for Bonneville and Bingham Counties. Blackfoot is the closest municipality to the INL Site with fully developed infrastructure capable of accommodating an influx of new residents.

Kurt Hibbert, the Planning and Zoning administrator for Blackfoot, provided detailed information on the developments, which will begin construction over the next few months. “Concordia Development of Rexburg is putting in 750 units of mixed townhouses, modular homes and trailer park homes,” he explained. “Brandt Monette with Concordia is currently getting ready to plat and is waiting on his petition to annex to be approved. Once those are taken care of, he’s ready to start building.” The development will be on 40 acres contiguous to Blackfoot city limits on the west side of the Snake River.

Four other projects are also in line to begin construction this year. According to Hibbert, Rex Rammell will begin a 32-unit mobile home subdivision in Blackfoot as soon as the city finishes the installation of wastewater infrastructure. “Rammell’s ready to go,” Hibbert said. “He’s just waiting on the city to get a sewer line installed out to his property.”

In October 2020, Murdoch Construction of Blackfoot won an appeal to the city council to build 16 single-family homes on 2.6 acres in the southwest quadrant of the city, in a neighborhood that is overwhelmingly low-density. The P&Z commission denied its Planned Use Development request in August 2020. The proposed subdivision attracted the opposition of its neighbors, most of whom are zoned as rural ranchettes, Blackfoot’s least dense land use, with one-acre minimum lots.

Kendall Murdoch, the firm’s owner, appealed the PUD denial to the city council. Murdoch’s proposed lot size was 5,300 square feet. The minimum lot size for Blackfoot’s R-1 zone is 6,000 square feet. The vote to approve the PUD was a tie vote for the city council. Mayor Carroll broke the tie with a vote to approve the PUD. Construction will begin this year.

Developer Colin Hunter is building Honey Brook subdivisions I and II on the east side of Blackfoot. The two subdivisions are exclusively for townhomes, and were approved and platted last year. The first is for 56 units and is scheduled to begin construction this summer. The second is for 96 units and is scheduled to begin construction this fall.

When all of the new units are added up, Blackfoot will be adding 950 new housing units. This is in addition to the 187 single family homes inn five new subdivisions that were either permitted or already under construction in 2020.

Utility growing pains

Blackfoot’s growth has been mirrored in the county on the other side of the Snake River and to the north of the city. Blackfoot’s property taxes are higher than the surrounding unincorporated county. Unsurprisingly, county residents have resisted annexation for more than a decade because it would raise property taxes.

Blackfoot provides sewer, fire and ambulance service to county residents both inside and outside its impact zone. Because of the structure of contracts and agreements in place, the amount of money that Blackfoot receives from the county and from the Groveland Water & Sewer District does not cover the full cost of the services provided. This has been a longstanding point of contention between the city and its utility customers. This situation has motivated the city in the past to forcibly annex to more equitably spread the cost of its services among the property owners already receiving them.

In 2016, Blackfoot forcibly annexed an area including the Idaho State Hospital South and the new Idaho Veterans Cemetery. It also attempted to forcibly annex land to the west of the Snake River in Groveland, including non-contiguous parcels belonging to Basic American Foods.

Groveland W&S and Basic American Foods sued the city on the ground that the annexation of the non-contiguous parcels did not meet the legal standards of annexation as necessary for orderly development. Seventh Judicial District Judge Darren Simpson ruled against the city in that lawsuit on May 24, 2017. Blackfoot provides sewer service to Groveland W&S, but not to Basic American which has its own wells and wastewater treatment plant.

In 2019, Groveland W&S again sued Blackfoot and won, over Blackfoot’s insertion of a clause in the new sewer hookup application for county residents. The clause, which was an agreement to be annexed, was not covered in the sewer services contract between Groveland W&S and Blackfoot.

The last impact area agreement between the city and the county was signed in 2003. The city has actively pursued a new impact area agreement since 2016, according to Hibbert. Blackfoot and Bingham County began work on a new agreement in 2020. The city’s P&Z Commission approved the draft of the new agreement in February. The county P&Z Commission scheduled a meeting to discuss on the draft agreement on March 31 but cancelled it after determining it had used sufficient public notification.

Since then, Groveland W&S sent a letter of protest to the City of Blackfoot, though not to Bingham County, that it has not been consulted in the drafting of a new impact area agreement, according to Hibbert. The Groveland W&S did not reply to inquiries before this article went to press. Given that Blackfoot has been transparent over its intent to annex, and Groveland W&S is not shy about taking the city to task, an impact area battle may be on Blackfoot’s and Bingham County’s doorstep.