Sandpoint ponders citywide hiring freeze

SANDPOINT — The City Council’s Administrative Committee is set to tackle a full agenda Wednesday that includes a proposed citywide hiring freeze and a plan aimed at encouraging affordable housing projects.

The items were put forward by Councilman Stephen Snedden, who said both are meant, in some way, to counter the city’s poor economic conditions.

After hearing the concerns of local developers and meeting with the Bonner Community Housing Agency, Snedden put together a proposal he believes can help increase the number and quality of area affordable homes.

To counteract city rules that some developers have called slow and cumbersome, Snedden is asking the council to adopt a number of pre-approved affordable housing plans that would have significantly lower permit fees. The plan would also waive certain impact fees, which Snedden said would encourage developers to build smaller homes.

Because many of the city’s permit and review fees are fixed, it makes more economic sense for developers to builder larger, more expensive homes, according to Snedden.

“Within the city, we make things more difficult just by our process,” he said. “It’s unduly burdensome for affordable housing builders to build smaller units because they pay these high impact fees and have higher costs on a smaller unit and they don’t have the ability to recapture that as easily.”

The plan would also let affordable housing applicants leapfrog non-affordable housing applicants for site review and allow developers to defer a percentage of city fees until the units are sold.

Snedden said maintaining an adequate supply of affordable housing is needed to preserve Sandpoint’s unique socioeconomic environment.

“I think affordable housing really encourages the diversity that we enjoy in Sandpoint,” Snedden added.

“It encourages people of varying walks of life to live here, like artists, new families and older people living on a fixed income. If we really work to keep our housing affordable, then those people will hopefully be able to continue to live in Sandpoint.”

Snedden’s second agenda item will ask for a one-year hiring freeze on all new or replacement positions within the city. He said the freeze would help the city monitor spending and control costs during a time of economic strain.

“I don’t see that the current economic conditions are getting dramatically better, so based on those conditions, I thought it was time that we make sure we’re being really fiscally prudent to avoid a catastrophe,” he said.

If approved, the freeze would not effect current city employees and would include a petition process to allow the council to replace any vacated positions deemed necessary for the proper function of the city.

The Administrative Committee will meet Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at Sandpoint City Hall.