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We have been called to action by our Partners at the Idaho Association of Cities (AIC). AIC has just been informed that the House Business committee will be holding a hearing tomorrow for House Bill 801 - the Development on Religious Land bill. This is the second iteration of this bill. The first one (S1278) remains in the desk drawer of the Senate State Affairs committee.
While there were some slight modifications to this legislation, AIC's concerns largely remain, and the policy team will be testifying to strongly oppose it. For more context as to why we're opposing it, here is the bill summary we wrote up:
Religious lands are tax exempt and the state/federal requirements to be recognized as a religion are set at a very low bar, making this a very dangerous and harmful proposal. To increase service demands by allowing housing on religious grounds, but removing the ability for the municipality to collect property tax for those new services is a huge problem. Plus, leases, regardless of the 40 years or not, usually have termination clauses and have people default on them all the time.
We need your help in killing these bills.
Please sign up to testify, here's the link to do that:
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