This city official is tired of Idaho legislators’ ‘micromanagement.’ Here’s why
Some Meridian officials are growing frustrated with what they describe as overreach by state lawmakers.
Late Tuesday night, Meridian City Hall had mostly cleared out by the time the City Council began its discussion on how laws passed during the 2026 legislative session are expected to affect the city. The postmortem highlighted nearly two dozen laws that the city attorney’s office identified as affecting Meridian city business, some requiring minor tweaks to standard practices and others necessitating city-code overhauls.
For City Council Member Liz Strader, the sheer volume of laws was concerning. By the city attorney’s office’s tally, a total of 56 bills out of the 344 passed this session could alter how cities operate.
“That’s 16%,” Strader said at the meeting. “It’s just a huge focus of the Legislature in the last couple of years ... and I just want to say, I don’t appreciate the level of micromanagement, especially on land-use items.
“I think it’s inappropriate.”
City Council Member Brian Whitlock joined Strader in concerns around what he called “significant overreach.”
“It’s going to be taxing on our agents, our departments to implement all of this, and when decisions are made and people are angry and our hands are tied, I think we do have to point back to where this is all emanating from,” he said.
New housing laws to prompt Meridian city code changes
Five of the new laws discussed at the City Council meeting tee up possible code changes, according to the presentation by Deputy City Attorney Emily Kane. Most have to do with housing.
The Legislature passed a suite of housing bills this session to override local zoning rules that proponents argued contributed to the state’s affordability woes, the Idaho Statesman previously reported. Championed by Coeur d’Alene Republicans Sen. Ben Toews and Rep. Jordan Redman, the bills defang cities’ ability to place certain restrictions on housing types, such as manufactured homes, small-lot subdivisions and “accessory-dwelling units” — smaller, secondary homes attached or adjacent to a primary residence.
In Meridian, this deregulatory approach means that the city will have to change its building code to allow manufactured homes on land zoned for multifamily development and to remove any restrictions for accessory-dwelling units, also known as ADUs, that exceed those for traditional single-family homes, according to Kane.
Accessory-dwelling units must be approved “as a matter of right,” meaning that the city no longer has the same level of discretion to deny them, Kane said.
The discussion also focused on Senate Bill 1352, which removes local restrictions on “starter-home subdivisions,” or denser subdivisions with smaller lots, if the subdivisions are at least 4 acres.
The law requires the city to allow residential lots as small as 1,500 square feet in all of its residential zones if they meet the starter-home parameters, Kane said. Now, Meridian’s lowest-density zone allows lots no smaller than 12,000 square feet, according to its unified development code.
“Well, not if it’s a starter-home subdivision anymore,” said Caleb Hood, the city’s deputy director of community development, at the meeting, noting that the law necessitates changes to the city’s code and comprehensive plan.
The city has until Feb. 1 to implement the changes.
Meridian spokesperson Trevor Smith told the Statesman by email that the city is still “evaluating the impacts and requirements of the bill.” He nodded to one key caveat that could allow a measure of discretion: Subdivisions need to be supportable by infrastructure.
Smith also noted that this year’s City Council discussion on legislative impacts was a city first.
City Council member worries laws ‘punish cities’
Strader and Whitlock pointed out that Meridian residents are unlikely to be happy about some of the changes that came out of the session, though neither singled out any particular bill.
Beyond housing bills, the list presented included bills governing flag displays on city properties, nepotism rules for elected officials, data centers’ municipal water usage, e-bikes and search-warrant requirements on private property.
“I’m sure it’s not the intention of individual legislators, but when you look at it as a whole, it’s hard to come away from this without getting the impression that they’re trying to punish cities or hurt cities in some ways,” Strader said, noting she is “pretty offended” by the Legislature’s heavy hand in city issues.
“We have land-use decisions all the time, where we regularly get 50 to 100 people that show up that are upset, and if we start having to make decisions and our hands are tied, I’m just going to tell those folks where to direct their complaints to,” she said.
Strader said she wants to see “more dialogue” with state lawmakers as a possible answer to her concerns.
In a text message to the Statesman, City Council member Luke Cavener pointed to a similar path forward, though he did not join Strader and Whitlock in raising concerns about possible overreach.
The city takes its “obligation to follow state code seriously,” Cavener said. “That said, the volume of significant legislation affecting cities each year is substantial, and implementing it well takes real work at the local level. My hope is simply that state lawmakers would be more open to hearing from cities across Idaho before these changes are finalized.
“We’re the ones who are impacted, administer, or implement them, and we have a lot of practical insight to offer.”
