There is another piece of legislation that was passed by the Idaho Legislature that went into law on July 1, 2008. Transitional housing is a relatively new and expanding market in Idaho. Transitional housing is primarily a commercial for profit venture. Transitional houses have been moving into residential neighborhoods across the state because of any regulations.
There appears to be a strong economic incentive to buy residential property, convert it to a commercial transitional house, and move paroled criminals into residential neighborhoods. As you can imagine, this practice has caused significant concern on the behalf of existing residents, many of whom had no notice of, and no ability to have any impact on, a commercial use moving into their neighborhood. There has also been significant disruption to local real estate markets caused by the unregulated locations of transitional homes.
Idaho law was silent regarding local governments ability to zone and regulate the placement of transitional housing. In this regard, Idaho law is actually more restrictive than federal law. Effective July 1, 2008 the Idaho legislature passed two pieces of legislation that deals with transitional housing issues.
The first of the legislation was House Bill 417. This legislation adds to existing law relating to adult criminal sex offenders to restrict persons registered or required to register under the Idaho Sex offender registration act from living together in groups exceeding two registered sex offenders and to provide exceptions.
The purpose of this bill is to balance the need for registered adult sex offenders to have housing available to them with concerns of citizens over sex offender group homes being established in residential neighborhoods. The difficulty encountered by cities and counties lies in interpretation of the federal Fair Housing Act by the United States Supreme Court. Under the Fair Housing Act persons suffering from alcohol and drug addiction are treated as disabled persons entitled to protection under the Act.
Group homes have been established in family neighborhoods by using the condition of drup and alcohol addiction to qualify the resident and then setting a secondary purpose such as housing for sex offenders or other felons who may or may not be under the supervision of the Department of Correction. According to the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division “persons convicted for illegal manufacture or distribution of a controlled substance, sex offenders, and juvenile offenders are not considered disabled under the Fair Housing Act, by virtue of that status.”
This bill addresses only the issue of registered adult sex offenders. This legislation: sets a limit of two registered adult sex offenders in a residential dwelling unit; provides for a judicial bypass in limited circumstances to exceed that limit; gives cities and counties authority to exceed the limit by ordinance to allow and regulate group residence homes for sex offenders; provides a misdemeanor penalty for violations, consistent with other statutes restricting sex offenders; requires Department of Correction approval for group home residence still supervising the offender; grandfathers current residence situations, while requiring compliance with ordinances of cities and counties when established.
Gail Heist is the Managing Broker at NAI Kowallis & Mackey, a full service Idaho commercial real estate brokerage and part of the world's largest network of commercial real estate offices consisting of 5,000 professionals in 350 offices in 55 countries around the world. Gail can be reached by phone at 208.385.9876 or by clicking the contact Gail link to the left of this post. Click here to view our current inventory of commercial properties.