I recently sat down with McCall City Manager Forest Atkinson to talk about growth, housing, and the future of Idaho communities. That conversation started in one resort town, but the reality we discussed stretches far beyond McCall. What is happening with short-term rentals is no longer a local issue. It is a statewide turning point that touches housing affordability, local authority, and the relationship between Idaho communities and the State Capitol.
This is not a fight about visitors or property rights alone. It is about balance, and about who gets to shape the places where Idaho families actually live.
When Homes Become Lodging, Housing Changes: In McCall, roughly 430 homes are now registered as short term rentals. That represents close to thirty percent of the available housing stock. The numbers tell a story that many Idaho towns are starting to recognize.
When a significant portion of housing turns into short stay lodging, the market shifts. Long term rentals shrink. Entry level homes become investment properties. Prices rise faster than wages. The people who keep a town functioning year-round find themselves competing with a tourism driven economy for a place to live.
This is not just McCall. Garden Valley, Stanley, parts of Valley County, and even neighborhoods in the Treasure Valley are feeling the same pressure.
The living Idaho resident feels it first while the Local Communities Are Trying To Guide Growth
\Many cities and counties are not trying to ban short term rentals. They are trying to guide them responsibly. Basic licensing. Fire safety inspections. Parking requirements. Conditional use review for large occupancy homes. These are not extreme measures. They are attempts to balance tourism with livability.
Some communities want to write code that reflects their own needs. Others want stricter limits because their housing supply is under strain. That is the principle of local governance. Different communities face different realities.
What happens when a town elects commissioners or council members who want to manage this locally, yet state law removes the tools they need to do it? That question is now at the center of Idaho politics.
The Reduction of Local Control: New legislation moving through the Idaho Legislature aims to restrict how much municipalities can regulate short term rentals. The argument is consistency and property rights. The impact may be a statewide rule applied to communities with very different challenges.
Idaho has long valued local decision making. Counties and cities understand their roads, infrastructure, and neighborhoods better than anyone else. When statewide policy reduces local authority, communities lose the ability to respond to real problems in real time.
What if a rural town does not want its housing stock converted into weekend lodging? What if voters elect local leaders to write code that protects year-round housing? What happens when those choices are overridden by a uniform state policy? These are not theoretical questions. They are happening now.
The Money Question Few Want To Discuss: There is another layer to this conversation that deserves attention. The State of Idaho collects sales tax and travel related tax revenue from short term rental activity. That revenue flows to the state while many of the impacts remain local. Roads wear down faster. Public safety services stretch thinner. Housing pressure rises. Infrastructure demands grow. Local communities manage the consequences while the financial benefit often flows upward. For many residents, that feels less like partnership and more like a shift in power.
If the state expands preemption while also benefiting from the revenue stream, Idahoans are right to ask whether this is simply policy or whether it is also a grab for control over both growth and money.
This Is Bigger Than One Town: Tourism is part of Idaho’s identity. Property rights matter. Economic opportunity matters. But so does the stability of neighborhoods and the ability of a community to decide what it wants to become.
The conversation I had in McCall was not about stopping growth. It was about guiding it in a way that protects the people who live there every day. That same conversation is happening quietly across Idaho right now.
The question facing the state is simple: Do we trust local communities to shape their own future, or do we move toward a one size fits all policy that treats every town the same regardless of its reality? The answer will define what Idaho looks like in the next decade. The living Idaho resident deserves to be part of that decision.
One reply on “Op Ed: Short Term Rentals, State Power, and the Living Idaho Resident”
There is no “but” sufficient to justify infringing on property rights. No collective has the right to infringe on property rights, no matter how many euphemisms or excuses the petty central planners who occupy city councils may offer. We must soundly reject *ALL* infringements on fundamental liberties, and do whatever it takes to protect our most essential rights from the communist cabals that have infested so many of this state’s local governments.