Bill Description: House Bill 937 would limit the restrictions that cities could impose on new multifamily and mixed-use developments on religious land.
Rating: +1
NOTE: House Bill 937 is related to House Bill 801 (2026) and Senate Bill 1278 (2026). House Bill 937 is the weakest of the three bills.
Does it violate the spirit or the letter of either the United States Constitution or the Idaho Constitution? Examples include restrictions on speech, public assembly, the press, privacy, private property, or firearms. Conversely, does it restore or uphold the protections guaranteed in the US Constitution or the Idaho Constitution?
House Bill 937 would create Section 67-6541, Idaho Code, to require cities to permit multifamily and mixed-use development as allowable uses on religious land and to prevent them from requiring “a zoning change, variance, conditional use permit, or other special approval in order to permit such uses on religious land.”
The bill defines “Religious land” as “land owned by a religious organization or land leased by a religious organization for a term of no less than forty (40) years.”
The bill says a city shall not “restrict building heights at or below three (3) stories but may restrict building heights above three (3) stories; or require the conversion of an existing building to exceed the international building code standards otherwise applicable.”
It does still allow cities to impose sewer and water access requirements; stormwater management requirements; and “building codes not otherwise restricted by this section.”
The bill would not apply to building homeless shelters or to “any portion of religious land located within one-quarter (1/4) mile of a heavy industrial use, an airport, or a military base.”
The bill would narrowly expand property rights for certain long-established religious land with numerous exceptions. This could serve to allow for some expanded housing development that would otherwise be inhibited by government meddling in the market.
(+1)
