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Letter to the Editor of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News Regarding Ordinance 2026-04

Compiled September 1, 2026. Independent civic project, not a City of Moscow product.

Start here: what this is about

Ordinance 2026-04 is a new City of Moscow rule. The City Council passed it on July 6, 2026.

Two City bodies handled it. The Planning and Zoning Commission is a volunteer citizen board. It reviews land-use rules and recommends them. The City Council is Moscow's elected government. It votes rules into law.

The City presented this rule as a life-safety measure. The letter below shows it changes zoning definitions and parking, not the building code that governs fire safety, and argues that it makes housing harder to build.

A few terms are used below. A zoning code sets how land is used: parking, lot size, and what counts as a room. A building code sets construction safety, such as fire sprinklers and exits. The State sets it, and the City may add to it only within state limits. A building permit is the City's approval to build. An application that is withdrawn was pulled by the applicant before a permit was issued.

This page prints the letter in full. Every factual claim has a numbered source. Tap any number to jump to it, or open the records yourself with the links.

Zoning code is not safety code.

Moscow's leaders told us Ordinance 2026-04 was about fire safety.12 It's not. Idaho writes the building code, and that is where fire and life safety live.4 Ordinance 2026-04 has no fire, exit, or sprinkler rules. It rewrites the zoning code, greatly expanding the definitions of bedrooms and kitchens and the parking requirements.3

The City sold 2026-04 as life safety.1 It's about parking.3

Every added parking space adds about 12 to 20 percent to the cost of development, per unit. Read another way, every parking space adds about 12 to 20 percent to a rental unit's price.5 Moscow is hard at work making housing more expensive in a town where police, teachers, nurses, young families, workers, and students struggle to pay rent.

The real irony is that the Mayor and Council ran on affordable housing.6 Everything they've done in their term has just made housing less accessible to those who need it the most. Since 2026-04 passed, the City's permit portal shows:7

Zero duplex permits issued.
Eight housing applications withdrawn.
Fourteen homes gone from the pipeline.

Mayor, Council: direct Planning and Zoning to repeal 2026-04. The bipartisan federal ROAD to Housing Act rewards cities that reform their zoning codes to make it easier to build.8 Take the initiative before the feds and Boise force you to.9

I offer my time, free of charge, to help Moscow find solutions and apply for these grants.

Neighbors, email the Mayor and Council. Tell them to let builders build.

hlewis@ci.moscow.id.us
council@ci.moscow.id.us

Sources: slagboom4moscow.com/sources

John Slagboom, Moscow

Sources

Every number links to a public record or a published study you can open online. Where a figure comes from a study rather than a City record, the study is named and linked.

  1. The Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, May 13, 2026.
    This is the citizen board's meeting where City staff first presented the rule. The written record of a meeting is called the minutes. The staff report says the buildings the rule targets "appear to be intentionally designed to avoid life safety, ADA accessibility, and off-street parking that would otherwise be required for multiple family dwelling units." The minutes record that the Commission "had a discussion about the careful balance of maintaining a minimal Zoning Code that also prioritizes the life-safety of Moscow citizens," and voted 7 to 0 to recommend the rule. Open the meeting, then click the "Minutes" tab.
  2. The City Council meeting, July 6, 2026.
    This is the meeting where the elected Council passed the rule. There are two records: the written minutes and the full video. The minutes report what members said in the clerk's words, not as a word-for-word transcript. They record Councilor Holmes stating the rule "addresses ADA accessibility and fire safety requirements," and Councilor Sumner "stating that reducing parking requirements is one of the simplest ways to encourage affordable housing." Every member present then voted yes; one member, McCetich, was absent. The Council used a step called "suspension of the rules," so the ordinance passed in one meeting after only its title was read. Open the meeting (click "Minutes").  |  Watch the video (it jumps to the fire-safety discussion at 1 hour 40 minutes 21 seconds).
  3. Ordinance 2026-04 itself, the text of the rule.
    This is the actual law the Council passed. It amends four parts of the City zoning code (Title 4): word definitions, including "kitchen" and "bedroom"; the list of allowed uses; the table of building size and placement; and off-street parking. The parking section adds a "bedroom calculation" rule, so any room that meets the new bedroom definition counts toward required parking. It adds no fire-sprinkler rule, no fire-alarm rule, no exit rule, and no accessible-unit rule. The words "life safety" appear only in the introductory "whereas" recital, which has no legal force. Open the July 6 meeting files to read the ordinance.
  4. Idaho law: the State adopts the building code, and cities cannot require sprinklers in one- and two-family homes.
    Idaho Code 39-4109 adopts the International Building Code, the International Residential Code, and related codes statewide, and says local governments apply them only as section 39-4116 allows. Idaho Code 39-4116(3) states that "all single family homes and multiple family dwellings up to two (2) units are hereby exempted from the provisions of the International Fire Code, the International Building Code and the Idaho residential code that require such dwellings to have automatic fire sprinkler systems installed." City staff said the same thing at the May 13 meeting: sprinklers "are not required and municipalities are not allowed to require them for single family and two family dwellings." Fire and exit rules live in these state-adopted codes, not in the City zoning code. Idaho Code 39-4109  |  Idaho Code 39-4116
  5. What a required parking space adds to housing cost: three published estimates.
    The letter's "about 12 to 20 percent" is the range across three studies. Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute modeled a typical affordable-housing project and found that one required parking space per unit raises the cost of each unit by about 12.5 percent, and two spaces by about 25 percent. Litman's December 2025 update of that report also cites Gabbe and Pierce (2016), who used American Housing Survey data and found an off-street parking space added about $1,700 a year, roughly 17 percent, to renters' rent. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council of Boston reports a Nelson\Nygaard finding that "each additional parking space per residential unit reduces the number of units on a typical lot by 20% and increases the cost of a typical unit by 20%." These are national and regional studies, not Moscow figures; local costs vary with land price and parking type. Litman, "Parking Requirement Impacts on Housing Affordability," VTPI, Dec. 21, 2025 (PDF)  |  Urbanism Next summary of Litman (12.5% / 25%)  |  MAPC, "Parking, Development Costs, and Affordability"
  6. What the Mayor and Council said about housing when they ran.
    Four of the seven were elected in November 2025. The University of Idaho Argonaut printed their written questionnaires on October 24, 2025. Councilor Holmes listed "Shorten timelines and increase options for the construction of affordable housing." Councilor McCetich listed "Generate more accessible, affordable housing opportunities by modifying zoning code." Councilor Sumner wrote "Housing is the No. 1 issue for Moscow" and that the city can act "through tools like zoning and parking." Mayor Lewis's campaign site calls for "adequate affordable and attainable housing for its population." Councilors Kelly, Davis, and Blankenship were elected in November 2023; the Moscow-Pullman Daily News reported on October 6, 2023 ("Differences subtle in Moscow candidate forum," by Anthony Kuipers) that affordable housing was a forum topic, with Davis speaking on "the need for more infill, and more accessory dwelling units." Argonaut candidate questionnaires, Oct. 24, 2025  |  haileylewis.com
  7. The City's public permit portal: the ledger since July 6, 2026.
    The City posts every building permit application on its PermitTrax portal, with a status for each. Three things are checked there. First, no duplex building permit has been issued since February 9, 2026 (BLD2025-1066); the two homes issued in May 2026 (BLD2026-0231 and BLD2026-0258) are single-family houses with basement accessory units, not duplexes. Second, between July 27 and August 11, 2026, eight residential building applications changed from "Applied" to "Withdrawn": BLD2026-0107, BLD2026-0108, BLD2026-0109, BLD2026-0317, BLD2026-0525, BLD2026-0589, BLD2026-0590, and BLD2026-0592. Third, those eight applications together contained at least fourteen homes, not counting one elderly-housing building among them. No new duplex or multi-unit building application has been filed since July 6. The letter reports the ledger; it does not claim the ordinance caused each withdrawal. Method: a keyword search of the portal across thirteen housing-type terms, checked on July 27, August 11, and August 25, 2026; all three pulls agree. Open the City permit search and enter any permit number above to see its status and dates.
  8. The federal ROAD to Housing Act, H.R. 6644.
    The 21st Century Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act passed the House 390 to 9 and the Senate 89 to 10, and became law on July 11, 2026. Section 208 creates an "Innovation Fund": competitive grants for local governments that have "demonstrated an objective improvement in housing supply growth." The listed qualifying reforms include "increasing by-right uses," "revising minimum lot size requirements," "streamlining regulatory requirements," and "eliminating restrictions against accessory dwelling units." Section 209 funds pre-approved plans for accessory units, duplexes, and townhouses. The Act authorizes the money; Congress must still appropriate it in the fiscal year 2027 budget before grants are awarded. A city that reforms now is the city that qualifies then. H.R. 6644 on Congress.gov  |  Enrolled text (GovInfo)  |  Vote history (GovTrack)
  9. "Boise": the 2026 Idaho housing laws that already bind Moscow.
    The 2026 Legislature passed housing laws that override parts of city zoning codes, and Moscow, a city over 10,000 people, is covered. Senate Bill 1354 requires cities to allow one accessory dwelling unit per lot by right, up to 1,000 square feet, with no parking requirement (three narrow exceptions) and no owner-occupancy rule; cities must amend their codes by February 1, 2027. Senate Bill 1352 requires cities to accept "starter home subdivisions" on lots as small as 1,500 square feet, with the same February 1, 2027 deadline. House Bill 800 (effective July 1, 2026) requires cities to allow a manufactured home as small as 400 square feet on any lot zoned for a single-family house. House Bill 707 (effective July 1, 2026) lets an owner split a lot that already holds an accessory unit so the unit can be financed separately. Each of these takes a decision away from the City and gives it to the property owner. SB 1354 (PDF)  |  SB 1352 (PDF)  |  HB 707 (PDF)  |  HB 800 (PDF)
Independent civic project. Not an official City of Moscow product. Verify against the source documents before citing.
A self-funded project of John Slagboom, Moscow, Idaho.