Recent development in the City of New Meadows is prompting city officials to consider expanding the boundaries of its growth zone.
On Monday, New Meadows Mayor Julie Good briefed Adams County Commissioners on the city’s thinking before moving forward with a formal proposal for updated New Meadows Impact Area boundaries.
No maps were presented, but Good said the city wants to extend the impact area, particularly further east toward McCall and further north along U.S. 95. The city’s current impact area boundaries, adopted in 2010, extend about a half-mile beyond city limits.
“I just wanted to come here and see if you guys have an issue with that before we start talking about what we’re going to do,” Good told the commissioners.
A new state law requires the city and the county to agree upon new impact areas by the end of this year.
County amicable to expansion concept
The commissioners did not object to Good’s plan and said a strong area of impact fuels “smart growth.”
“It doesn’t change the way either of us view the property, it just kind of memorializes it,” Commissioner Daren Ward said. “I personally have no issues with that.”
The New Meadows Impact Area is governed by county codes, the Adams County Planning and Zoning Commission, and the county commissioners.
The designation, however, entitles the city to a seat at the table for all land use decisions in the impact area—albeit as a non-voting member of the decision-making body.
New Meadows, like every other city in the state, is required to review existing impact areas by the end of the year to ensure compliance with updated standards in state law.
The new standards require land within impact areas to be “very likely” to be annexed into the city within five years and set five criteria to help determine the likelihood.
The criteria include utility availability, transportation infrastructure, other public service district boundaries, projected growth, and geographic factors.
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Growth prospects
Good noted capacity in the city’s water system for 500 new connections and said she fields annexation requests from residents of Meadows, an unincorporated part of Meadows Valley three miles east of New Meadows.
The city has recently seen a flurry of residential development, with 28 new apartments built since 2022 near the junction of Idaho 55 and U.S. 95.
Brundage Mountain Resort also recently remodeled a former schoolhouse building at 520 Virginia St. for use as employee housing. The 10,000-square-foot building, now known as Meadows Haus, provides beds for up to 20 Brundage workers.
New Meadows begins its impact area negotiations with Adams County as Valley County is preparing to finalize its negotiations with the City of McCall, as Valley Lookout reported.
The county already adopted new impact area boundaries for the cities of Donnelly and Cascade following negotiations earlier this year.
If approved by Adams County, New Meadows would become the only city in the region to see its impact area expand to comply with the new state standards.
The cities of Donnelly and Cascade proposed smaller impact areas that were approved by Valley County, while the county is expected to significantly trim boundaries proposed by McCall.
