09/13/2026
I agree with a lot of the sentiment here, and I think this is a conversation our community needs to have. I was at the Housing Panel & Community Conversation last week with both the Pocatello and Chubbuck mayors, Councilwoman Ann Swanson, the Chubbuck building official, multiple builders, developers and others. One thing I came away believing is that most of the people involved genuinely want our communities to grow and want housing to be more attainable.
Where I think we have a major disconnect is between that goal and what actually happens during the development and construction process.
We talk constantly about housing affordability and the rising cost of living, but every additional requirement, redesign, engineering change and months of delay has a real dollar cost. Those costs don’t just disappear or come out of some unlimited developer profit margin. They eventually become part of the price of the lot, the home, the rent or the commercial building.
Ultimately, the person paying for many of these requirements is the homeowner, renter or local business.
I don’t think that connection is always fully understood when requirements are created or enforced. Something that may look minor on paper can cost tens of thousands of dollars, or more, in the real world.
Delays can be just as expensive when a developer or builder is carrying land, construction loans, interest, equipment and overhead while waiting for approvals.
In my experience, most local builders and developers are reasonable people. We understand that there need to be standards for safety, infrastructure and good planning, and most of us are more than willing to work toward practical solutions. I also believe our mayors and several members of city leadership genuinely want to find those solutions.
My biggest frustration has historically been with the engineering and regulatory side of the process. Too often it feels like the goal becomes checking every box and applying every possible standard rather than asking, “What problem are we trying to solve, and is there a safe, reasonable and cost-effective way to solve it?” There needs to be room for professional judgment, common sense and practical alternatives when the same objective can be accomplished another way.
Good regulation is necessary. Overregulation, unnecessary delays and requirements that provide very little practical benefit are not. And in my opinion, that is where we are today.
If we truly want affordable housing, economic development and responsible growth, cities, builders and developers have to work together, and the real-world cost of every requirement needs to be part of that conversation.
You cannot continually add costs, delays and complexity to development and then be surprised that housing is not affordable.
If Pocatello and Chubbuck truly want more housing, more investment and responsible growth, then the cities also have to be willing to look critically at their own regulations, engineering requirements and approval processes. Builders and developers need to be part of that conversation rather than continually being treated as though asking for a reasonable alternative means we are trying to get around the rules.
I believe there are good people within both cities who want to improve this. But there also needs to be recognition that parts of the current system are simply too burdensome, too slow and too expensive.
Spring Creek Homes LLC
