Grow Idaho’s Letter

Grow Idaho was created to offer real-world solutions to the problem of farmland loss. This was after a group of farmers had been following reports about the startling loss of farmland in Idaho, but we were not seeing any remedies offered to our elected officials. Grow Idaho’s interest in data driven decision making lead us to Urban Three. Urban Three helps cities and counties design financially stable communities.

In seeing the sprawl in Canyon County, we asked Urban Three for an estimate of what it would cost for Caldwell, and the surrounding county, to get on a data driven track of financial stability in the growth of the city. What is also offered in this estimate is the ability to track costs of any proposed project from initiation, through infrastructure maintenance (cost of services), and tax surplus or deficiency of an area. We think this would be a major step forward in transparency for the citizens of Nampa and Caldwell. We also believe this shines a light on the need to support a city’s downtown core and surrounding area, both commercial and residential, for infill purposes. It also protects agriculture by building closer to the city and not sprawling into rural areas.

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HOME BUILDERS (Click to View Video)

We would like to also draw your attention to a recent video that Urban Three created for the National Association of Home Builders. (Click to view) We see a trend where home builders are recognizing that sprawl is unsustainable for many communities, and an interest by construction and development associations in alternate solutions. It is somewhat remarkable that agriculture interests and the National Association of Homebuilders agree on this point. We can get a lot more done when we work together on solutions for our future, and this is the real-world solution that Grow Idaho is interested in; and we hope you are as well.

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Click on the image to view the report