Idaho's new housing laws are in effect. Your code has until February 1, 2027.
Three housing bills signed in 2026 became effective July 1, 2026, and every Idaho city over 10,000 population must bring its zoning code into compliance by February 1, 2027. Provisions below the new state floors will not survive contact with an applicant who knows the statutes. We audit your code section by section and hand you the gap register before someone else finds the gaps for you.
What Changed on July 1, 2026
Each statute sets a floor local codes may not go below. These are the provisions we test your code against.
Manufactured Homes (I.C. 67-6509A, from HB 800)
Manufactured homes may be single section or multisectional, at 400 square feet minimum for single section and 800 for multisectional, and must be allowed wherever single-family dwellings are allowed. Size standards survive only if applied equally to site-built homes.
Accessory Dwelling Units (I.C. 67-6541, from SB 1354)
Cities may not cap ADU size below 1,000 square feet or 75 percent of the primary dwelling, may not impose a blanket off-street parking requirement, and may not require owner occupancy of either unit.
Starter Home Subdivisions (I.C. 67-6542, from SB 1352)
On qualifying subdivisions of four acres or more, cities may not require lot sizes above 1,500 square feet. Codes whose smallest residential lot is measured in thousands of square feet need a compliance pathway.
What the Audit Produces
A fixed-scope engagement with a defined output your planning staff and city attorney can act on directly.
Conflict Register
Every provision in your zoning code that conflicts with the new statutes, quoted verbatim, cited to title, chapter, and section, and graded by conflict strength.
Statute Crosswalk
Side-by-side statutory text against your code text for each conflict, so the divergence is visible without interpretation.
Amendment Worklist
The ordered list of code sections requiring amendment before February 1, 2027, ready for your attorney to draft against.
Adjacent-Risk Notes
Provisions that do not facially conflict but sit close enough to the new floors to invite challenge, flagged for staff judgment.
The method has already run at full scale
This audit is not a proposal to figure something out. The complete crosswalk was performed against a covered Idaho city's full zoning code as a method demonstration: every ADU provision, manufactured housing definition, and lot size standard tested against the enacted statute text as verified at legislature.idaho.gov. That demonstration identified four confirmed facial conflicts and one conditional conflict in a single code.
The working assumption any covered city should hold: if your code predates 2026 and has not been amended for these statutes, it contains conflicts. The question the audit answers is where, how many, and how strong.
How the Audit Runs
Remote, document-driven, and fast enough to leave time for the amendment cycle before the deadline.
Scope
We confirm your published code version, its amendment history, and the sections in play. Fixed fee quoted at this step.
Crosswalk
Section-by-section comparison of your code against the three statutes, every finding quoted and cited.
Register
Draft conflict register delivered for staff review, with a working session to walk each finding.
Final
Final register, crosswalk, and amendment worklist delivered, timed for your ordinance calendar before February 1, 2027.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. We deliver document analysis: what your code says, what the statute says, and where they diverge, with citations for every claim. Amendment drafting and legal conclusions belong to your city attorney. The audit gives that work a verified starting point.
A spot check catches the obvious sections. The conflicts that generate disputes hide in definitions, parking tables, and overlay chapters that nobody rereads. The audit reads everything, which is why it is fixed scope rather than hourly.
The compliance mandate applies to cities over 10,000, but the statutes shape applicant expectations statewide. Smaller cities can run the same audit as a policy review.
The crosswalk method is built and tested. Most single-city engagements fit inside a few weeks from scope confirmation, which still leaves ordinance-cycle time before the deadline if started in 2026.
Our free self-check tool asks ten questions about your code and estimates your conflict exposure. It is a screen, not an audit, but it will tell you whether you have a problem.
February 1, 2027 is an ordinance cycle away.
Email us your city and your published code link. We will come back with a fixed-fee quote and a timeline that fits your council calendar. Or start with the free self-check: /tools/idaho-housing-law-check.html
Email Us About an Audit