2018 State of the City
The mayor’s address was delivered to a gathering of approximately 1,000 at the Velma V. Morrison Center for the Performing Arts – one of the City of Boise’s two Cultural Ambassadors - on September 12, 2018. The address included performances from singer Eilen Jewell, a Boise native, the Boise-based contemporary dance troupe LED, and Afrosonics, a group that emerged from the city’s other Cultural Ambassador, Global Lounge.
Mayor Bieter proposed a series of significant policy initiatives in his speech.
Housing, the mayor said, has been a topic of particular interest to residents in recent months, including during the city’s series of community conversations on growth, in which “affordable housing came to the forefront.”
As a result, the mayor proposed a robust slate of five policy proposals to impact housing affordability:
- Creation of a $20 million Housing Land Trust “to preserve and protect housing affordability” through a combination of philanthropy and city funding
- Expand the City of Boise’s successful downtown housing incentive program to the entire city to help create housing affordable to those making less than 80 percent of the city’s median household income
- Continue to leverage both public and private property to create and attract new housing investments
- Maximize land-use rules and zoning to better incentivize the construction of housing citywide
- Collaborate with other public partners, particularly the Capital City Development Corporation, to find new resources and tools for housing creation
You can see the speech in its entirety in the video below.