Timeline: The Evolution of Idaho Urban Renewal Law
From Federal Urban Renewal to Idaho’s Revenue Allocation System
1965 — Idaho Urban Renewal Law Enacted
The Idaho Legislature enacted the Idaho Urban Renewal Law of 1965, Chapter 246, Session Laws of 1965, creating the basic legal framework that still underlies urban renewal in Idaho. Now codified primarily as Title 50, Chapter 20, Idaho Code, the law authorized municipalities to establish urban renewal agencies after making statutory findings that deteriorated or deteriorating conditions existed.
The law reflected the national urban-renewal philosophy of the era. Agencies received broad powers to prepare redevelopment plans, acquire and dispose of property, construct improvements and undertake redevelopment projects. Financing during this period depended heavily upon federal urban-renewal funding.
Why it mattered: This created urban renewal agencies in Idaho, but not the modern revenue-allocation system that later became their primary financing tool. Boise created the Boise Redevelopment Agency shortly after passage of the law.
1972 — Idaho Supreme Court Upholds Urban Renewal Law
In Boise Redevelopment Agency v. Yick Kong Corp., the Idaho Supreme Court considered constitutional challenges to the 1965 law arising from BRA’s downtown redevelopment activities.
The Court upheld the statutory framework and the Legislature’s determination that eliminating deteriorated conditions constituted a legitimate public purpose.
Why it mattered: The decision provided important judicial validation for Idaho’s relatively new urban-renewal system.
1980s — Federal Funding Disappears
By the early 1980s, the federal programs that had financed much of traditional urban renewal were disappearing. Idaho cities retained redevelopment authority but lacked the financial resources that had supported earlier projects.
The search began for a financing mechanism based on locally generated economic growth rather than federal grants. That search fundamentally changed Idaho urban renewal.
1987 — Idaho Creates Revenue Allocation Financing
The Idaho Legislature amended the Urban Renewal Law to authorize revenue allocation financing for an urban renewal agency in a municipality with more than 100,000 residents. At the time, the provision effectively applied to Boise.
The original system was considerably narrower than today’s law. State Tax Commission history records that revenue allocation areas were initially limited to 35 acres, with only one permitted within an urban renewal agency. The Central District was 34 acres.
The legislation established the essential financing concept that survives today: taxing districts continue receiving taxes from the base assessment roll, while taxes generated from increases in assessed value within the revenue allocation area could be allocated to the urban renewal agency.
Why it mattered: For the first time, Idaho had created what is commonly called tax increment financing, or TIF, although Idaho law uses the term revenue allocation. Boise became the state’s early test case.
1987 — Boise Central District Uses the New Tool
Boise amended and restated its Central District Urban Renewal Plan following enactment of the new law. Revenue allocation ultimately became a major source of funding for downtown public investments and redevelopment activities.
Why it mattered: The financing model shifted from federal urban-renewal dollars toward locally generated property-tax increment. CCDC’s historical documents describe the 1987 legislation as the precursor to Idaho’s modern Local Economic Development Act.
1988 — Local Economic Development Act
The Legislature enacted Chapter 210, Session Laws of 1988—the Local Economic Development Act, now Title 50, Chapter 29, Idaho Code.
The new act extended revenue-allocation authority to municipalities with populations under 100,000, making the financing mechanism available beyond Boise. The statute established the framework for creating revenue allocation areas, calculating the base assessment roll and increment, establishing special funds and issuing revenue-allocation bonds.
Why it mattered: Revenue allocation moved from what had essentially been a Boise-specific experiment toward a **statewide economic-development financing system.
1990 — One Statewide System
The Legislature eliminated the distinction between Boise and Idaho’s smaller municipalities. Authority was initially provided to Boise in 1987, extended to other Idaho communities in 1988, and the distinction was repealed in 1990 so communities operated under the Local Economic Development Act.
Why it mattered: The basic architecture of Idaho’s modern urban-renewal financing system was now in place statewide.
1990 — Idaho Falls Case Tests Revenue Allocation
The Idaho Supreme Court considered the new financing system in Idaho Falls Redevelopment Agency v. Countryman. The case involved proposed bonds for the Lindsay Boulevard urban renewal project that would be repaid using incremental property-tax revenue. The Court’s decision became an important early judicial interpretation of Idaho’s new revenue-allocation structure and documented the Legislature’s two-stage adoption of the financing mechanism in 1987 and 1988.
1994–2002 — Legislature Continues Refining the Act
The Legislature repeatedly amended the Local Economic Development Act as use of revenue allocation expanded around Idaho.
The legislative history of Idaho Code §50-2903 records amendments in 1994, 1996, 2000 and 2002, modifying and refining definitions and operation of the system.
Why it mattered: Revenue allocation was becoming an established component of Idaho economic-development and property-tax law rather than an experimental redevelopment financing mechanism.
2011 — Major Urban Renewal Reform: House Bill 95
One of the most significant legislative revisions since creation of revenue allocation occurred with House Bill 95, signed into law as Chapter 317, Session Laws of 2011.
The legislation made numerous changes to Idaho’s Urban Renewal Law and Local Economic Development Act. Among the most consequential, it generally established a 20-year maximum duration for new revenue allocation areas created after July 1, 2011, while providing provisions governing longer bond obligations. Existing districts remained subject to the termination provisions contained in their existing plans or ordinances.
The legislation also addressed urban renewal boards, plan amendments, revenue allocation areas, treatment of excess revenues and changes in the base assessment roll. It permitted a one-time annexation to certain revenue allocation areas, generally limited to 10 percent of the existing area, and established restrictions governing future plan amendments.
Why it mattered: The legislation moved Idaho decisively toward the modern concept of urban renewal districts as **temporary financing mechanisms with defined termination dates, rather than entities capable of continuing revenue allocation indefinitely.
2016 — Another Major Rewrite: House Bill 606 / Chapter 349
The Legislature again made substantial changes in 2016, enacted as Chapter 349, Session Laws of 2016. A particularly important provision created Idaho Code §50-2903A.
Beginning July 1, 2016, certain modifications to an urban renewal plan containing a revenue-allocation provision could result in the area’s current assessed value becoming the new base value. In practical terms, that could prevent an agency from substantially modifying an existing plan while continuing to capture all of the increment associated with the older base year. The law contained exceptions for technical or ministerial amendments, certain limited boundary changes and other specified circumstances. It also required agencies to annually attest whether their plans had been modified.
Why it mattered: The Legislature created a significant financial consequence for substantial changes to existing plans, reinforcing the idea that an established revenue-allocation area could not simply be continually reinvented while indefinitely retaining its original tax base.
2023 — Data Centers and the Property-Tax Base
The Legislature addressed a new economic-development issue as large data centers began locating in Idaho. Under legislation enacted in 2023, qualifying data-center property involving at least $250 million of capital investment and specified employment requirements was required, under defined circumstances, to be added to the base assessment roll rather than becoming revenue-allocation increment.
Why it mattered: The legislation demonstrated that the Legislature continued to determine which categories of new property value should benefit an urban renewal agency and which should flow directly to the regular property-tax base of local taxing districts.
2025 — Further Changes to Revenue Allocation Law
The Legislature again amended key provisions of the Local Economic Development Act in 2025 through Chapter 300. The changes amended both §50-2903, governing definitions and the base assessment roll, and §50-2903A, governing the effect of modifications to urban renewal plans.
Why it mattered: More than three decades after Idaho adopted revenue allocation, the Legislature continues to refine the balance between redevelopment financing and the property-tax revenues available to counties, cities, schools and other overlapping taxing districts.
The Legislative Arc: 1965–Present
The history can be understood as four distinct eras:
1965–1986: Urban Renewal Authority
Idaho created urban renewal agencies largely within the federally financed redevelopment model.
1987–1990: Revenue Allocation Revolution
The Legislature created a new locally financed system—first for Boise, then for smaller communities, and finally as a uniform statewide framework.
1990–2010: Expansion and Refinement
Revenue allocation became an increasingly common economic-development tool throughout Idaho, while lawmakers periodically refined the statutes.
2011–Present: Limits, Accountability and Defined Lifespans
The Legislature increasingly focused on termination dates, plan modifications, district boundaries, base values, excess revenues, reporting and the relationship between urban renewal agencies and overlapping taxing districts.
The most important turning point remains 1987.
The 1965 Urban Renewal Law gave Idaho communities the authority to undertake urban renewal. The 1987–1990 legislation gave them the financial mechanism that made modern Idaho urban renewal possible.
That distinction explains much of the history that followed.
From Federal Renewal to Local Investment: How the Idaho Legislature Shaped Urban Renewal
Idaho’s modern urban renewal system was not created all at once.
It emerged through more than six decades of legislative action—beginning with a 1965 law modeled on the urban renewal movement sweeping the country, transformed in the late 1980s by a new way of financing redevelopment, and repeatedly revised by lawmakers seeking to define how long urban renewal districts should exist, where they could operate and how the resulting property-tax revenues should be managed.
At the center of that history are two separate but interconnected statutes: the Idaho Urban Renewal Law of 1965 and the Local Economic Development Act, adopted more than two decades later. Together, they created the framework under which Idaho cities—including Boise—have financed billions of dollars of redevelopment and public infrastructure.
1965: Idaho Enters the Urban Renewal Era
The foundation came in 1965, when the Idaho Legislature enacted Chapter 246 of the 1965 Session Laws, formally known as the Idaho Urban Renewal Law of 1965 and now codified principally in Chapter 20, Title 50 of Idaho Code.
The language reflected its era. The Legislature declared that “deteriorated and deteriorating areas” represented a threat to public health and welfare, weakened municipal tax bases, impeded economic growth, aggravated traffic problems and required disproportionate levels of public services. Urban renewal was therefore declared a legitimate public purpose.
The law gave municipalities a powerful new redevelopment structure. A city could determine that deteriorated or deteriorating areas existed, declare that redevelopment was necessary and establish an independent urban renewal agency. Those agencies could prepare redevelopment plans, acquire and dispose of property, construct improvements, enter into agreements and, under the original law, exercise eminent-domain authority for authorized urban renewal purposes.
Boise acted almost immediately, establishing the Boise Redevelopment Agency in August 1965. But the financing environment of the 1960s was fundamentally different from today’s.
Federal urban renewal grants supplied much of the money. The original Idaho law established the governmental authority to undertake redevelopment, but it did not yet contain the revenue-allocation financing system that would eventually become the principal financial engine of Idaho urban renewal. That came more than 20 years later.
1972: Idaho’s Supreme Court Upholds the Law
The young statute soon faced a significant constitutional challenge. In Boise Redevelopment Agency v. Yick Kong Corp., decided in 1972, property owners challenged the constitutionality of the Urban Renewal Law as BRA pursued condemnation within its downtown Boise project.
The Idaho Supreme Court upheld the statutory framework and BRA’s authority to operate under it. The case became an important early affirmation that urban renewal constituted a public purpose under Idaho law. Yet another problem was emerging.
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, federal urban renewal programs were disappearing. Cities might still possess the legal authority to undertake redevelopment, but the federal money that had financed the first generation of projects was no longer available on the same scale. Idaho needed another financing mechanism.
1987: Boise Becomes the Test Case
The decisive change came in 1987. The Idaho Legislature amended state law to permit revenue allocation financing for an urban renewal agency in a municipality with a population greater than 100,000—at the time, a provision effectively applicable to Boise.The concept was straightforward but powerful.
When a revenue allocation area was established, the existing assessed value of property within its boundary became the base. Taxing districts continued receiving property taxes generated from that base value. As redevelopment occurred and assessed values increased, property-tax revenue attributable to the increase—the increment—could be allocated to the urban renewal agency to finance improvements within the district.
Instead of requiring a city to finance redevelopment entirely from existing revenues, the Legislature had created a mechanism through which a portion of the future tax growth generated inside the redevelopment area could help pay for the investments intended to produce that growth. Boise quickly put the new authority to work.
In 1987, the Boise Central District urban renewal plan was amended and restated, laying the foundation for revenue allocation financing that would eventually support a new generation of downtown investments. CCDC’s historical planning documents describe the 1987 legislation as the precursor to today’s statewide Revenue Allocation Act.
1988: Revenue Allocation Goes Statewide
One year later, the Legislature broadened the idea dramatically. In 1988, Chapter 210 of the Idaho Session Laws created the Local Economic Development Act, now Chapter 29, Title 50, Idaho Code. Initially, it provided comparable revenue-allocation authority for municipalities with populations below 100,000.
The Legislature explicitly stated what it hoped the new financing system would accomplish: finance economic growth in urban renewal areas, encourage private development, support needed public improvements and encourage taxing districts to cooperate by allocating future tax growth toward improvements intended to expand their common tax base.
The significance was substantial. Urban renewal was no longer primarily a remnant of the federal redevelopment programs of the 1960s. Idaho had created a locally financed economic-development model.
The Idaho Supreme Court soon examined the new mechanism in Idaho Falls Redevelopment Agency v. Countryman. The case involved Idaho Falls’ Lindsay Boulevard urban renewal area and bonds proposed to be repaid using incremental property taxes. The court’s discussion documented the two-part legislative structure: the 1987 law provided revenue allocation financing for municipalities above 100,000 population, while the 1988 Local Economic Development Act extended the mechanism to smaller municipalities.
1990: One System for Idaho
The Legislature returned to the issue in 1990 and removed the population distinction.
From that point forward, Idaho communities essentially operated under the same statewide revenue-allocation framework. CCDC’s Central District plan summarizes the progression succinctly: revenue allocation authority was created for Boise in 1987, extended to other Idaho cities in 1988, and the distinction was eliminated in 1990.
That evolution proved enormously consequential. Urban renewal agencies were no longer dependent upon federal grants. Revenue allocation could finance streets, utilities, parking, public spaces, site improvements and other infrastructure necessary to support redevelopment.
The system increasingly shifted Idaho urban renewal from the old model of government acquisition and clearance toward a model of public investment intended to catalyze private investment.
As revenue allocation became more widely used, the Legislature repeatedly revisited the law. Significant amendments followed in 1994, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2009 and 2011, among other years. The statutory history of Idaho Code §§50-2903 and 50-2904 documents the continuing legislative effort to refine definitions, financing provisions, district duration, plan requirements and the treatment of revenue-allocation proceeds.
The 2011 legislation was particularly broad. Among other changes, lawmakers more closely integrated the Urban Renewal Law and Local Economic Development Act and required urban renewal plans containing revenue-allocation provisions to include the information specified under the financing statute.
Some feel the Legislature was increasingly treating urban renewal not simply as redevelopment authority but as a substantial component of Idaho’s property-tax system. That brought greater scrutiny.
2016: A Major New Set of Guardrails
One of the most consequential modern revisions came in 2016. The Legislature enacted Chapter 349, creating new rules governing revenue allocation areas and modifications to urban renewal plans.
Among the changes was a new Idaho Code §50-2903A, addressing what happens to the base assessment roll when an urban renewal plan containing revenue allocation financing is modified. For plans subject to the new rules, certain modifications could cause current assessed value to be added back into the base, allowing taxing districts rather than the urban renewal agency to receive the associated future property-tax revenue. Exceptions were provided where outstanding indebtedness required continued allocation.
The changes also increased reporting and procedural requirements surrounding plan modifications. The Legislature was signaling an important shift: revenue allocation remained an authorized economic-development tool, but districts would operate under increasingly defined fiscal boundaries.
Later changes further tightened those boundaries. Current Idaho law provides that the base assessment rolls of revenue allocation areas may not exceed 10 percent of the municipality’s total current assessed value. Perhaps even more consequential has been the Legislature’s treatment of duration. For newer plans, Idaho law now defines a termination date as a specific date no later than 20 years from the effective date of an urban renewal plan, subject to limited statutory provisions involving obligations and extensions.
That represents a significant change from some earlier Idaho districts, which operated for considerably longer periods. Boise’s River Myrtle–Old Boise District, for example, completed a 30-year term in 2025. The principle embedded in the newer legislation is increasingly clear: a revenue allocation district is intended to be temporary.
It is created, makes investments, pays its obligations and eventually terminates. At that point, the increased assessed value returns fully to the regular property-tax rolls of the overlapping taxing districts.
The Legislature has continued adjusting the system. Changes in 2023 addressed, among other things, how certain large data-center investments are treated in the base assessment roll. Further amendments were enacted in 2025, demonstrating that the relationship between economic development and property taxation remains an active legislative issue. Yet the basic architecture created during the 1965–1990 period remains recognizable.
The Urban Renewal Law of 1965 provides the authority to establish agencies and undertake redevelopment. The Local Economic Development Act and revenue-allocation provisions developed between 1987 and 1990 provide the principal financing mechanism.
Together they created a distinctly Idaho version of tax-increment financing.
The evolution also tells a broader story about Idaho government.
In the 1960s, urban renewal largely meant using federal resources and government redevelopment powers to eliminate deteriorated conditions. By the late 1980s, Idaho lawmakers had replaced the disappearing federal financial model with one based on locally generated future property-tax growth.
Since then, the Legislature has repeatedly refined the rules—preserving revenue allocation as an economic-development tool while placing increasingly specific limits on district boundaries, duration, plan amendments, indebtedness, reporting and the disposition of tax revenues.
More than 60 years after the original Urban Renewal Law was enacted, Idaho’s urban renewal statutes therefore look very different from the law adopted in 1965. But their underlying premise remains remarkably consistent: local governments may intervene strategically in areas where public investment can help overcome barriers to redevelopment, with the expectation that those investments will ultimately create a stronger and more productive tax base.
The major legislative change has been not so much why Idaho permits urban renewal, but how it is financed, how long it can operate and how carefully that authority is bounded by state law.