New poll finds residents like Boise but worry about housing affordability, growth

A new poll says that while most Boise and Garden City residents like living in their city, 34% say they will likely move in the next few years.

According to the survey, 81% of respondents say they love or like the Boise area and 37% say they are very satisfied with their life. But housing affordability and managing growth are major local problems, according the survey data.

The survey was conducted by Embold Research, a new, nonpartisan, nonpolitical division of Change Research, a Bay Area firm that does online-only polling for advocacy groups and Democratic candidates.

The company surveyed 924 adults online in Boise and Garden City, Idaho, between Friday, May 7, and Wednesday, May 12. The margin of error is 3.4%.

Embold says 61% of respondents included housing affordability among their top three most important local issues, 40% included managing growth, and 36% included jobs and wages.

HOUSING AFFORDABILITY

Housing affordability was a major concern for long-time residents: 63% of residents who have lived here for 10 years or longer said affordability is a top issue. So did 55% of those who have lived here less than five years.

Housing prices are skyrocketing in the area. This year, Ada County residents can expect to see a nearly 28% increase in their property tax assessments, according to Ada County Assessor Bob McQuade.

Boise rent prices also topped the charts for increases in the last year. Apartment List found rents jumped an estimated 23% in the last year.

A majority of the Boise and Garden City renters, 85%, listed housing affordability as their top issue, according to the survey.

Renters also expressed a significantly lower quality-of-life ratings. The average ranking on a 0-10 scale among renters surveyed was 5.4, with 22% indicating they were very satisfied. For homeowners the average was 6.7 in ranking, with 48% very satisfied.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT TRUST

When it comes to trusting local government to address growth and development, the survey found that residents have slightly lower trust than the national average. Boise and Garden City residents had an 3.4 average response on a scale of 0 to 10. The scale listed 0 as no trust and 10 as always trusting. The national average is 3.8.

Overall, the residents surveyed offered an average job rating for local government of 3.6 on a 0–10 scale from poor to excellent, trailing the national average of 4.2.

The survey offered some suggestions from respondents for ways to address the booming growth. The survey found that 72% of respondents support “allowing homeowners to construct small, detached backyard housing units,” and 86% support “allowing smaller, more affordable housing units such as townhouses.”

Embold Research recruited respondents to the survey online and said it made adjustments in age, gender, race/ethnicity, education and geography to match five-year estimates of demographics of Boise and Garden City. The local results are compared with a national survey of 941 adults across the United States between March 18 and March 30.

Embold released the poll results in what it said would be the first of three releases about the survey. The company said the next two parts will examine growth, social and institutional trust and COVID recovery.