Shelly Buchanan completed her Boards and Commissions Fellowship with Conservation Voters for Idaho Education Fund in 2023, and was appointed last year to the Development Impact Fee Committee with Ada County, Idaho.

During the fellowship, Shelly and other participants learned not only about applying environmental policy in board and commissions work, but also about the leadership skills needed to serve. Shelly’s childhood experience learning how to run meetings and follow Robert’s Rules of Order as a leader in the youth organization 4-H came in handy here.

“I ran the mock hearing that we do toward the end of the fellowship to practice what we have learned, since I’m more familiar with Robert’s Rules,” she reflected.

Shelly also found one of the most helpful aspects of the fellowship was learning more about what was happening in her community, and learning which boards and commissions had vacancies.

“We had different speakers for each session, so we got to meet lots of people. It really opened my eyes to how much I didn’t know about what’s going on in the community. Learning about the different positions available was really amazing preparation,” Shelly said.

Once she knew which vacancies existed, she was able to investigate the options that interested her and learn about the process for applying for those boards. She applied first to join the board of the Housing Authority but was not chosen, and ultimately landed on the Development Impact Fee Committee.

Impact fees are new in Ada County. They are a tool that local governments can use to ensure that new housing developments help to pay for services (like firefighters and schools) for new residents.

Shelly’s commission helps to address a growing problem in the county: it doesn’t have the infrastructure to support the area’s current rapid growth in population and housing development. Rapid growth in residents leads to rapid growth in needs for government services, so her commission has the critical role of deciding which infrastructure should be developed first with the limited funds generated by development impact fees.

“We vote on things like new fire stations and new ambulance routes. It’s all about how to provide needed services to all the newly developed areas,” said Shelly.

One of the tensions in her role is that all the new development needs infrastructure to keep up – but the impact fees get passed on to prospective buyers in the form of higher home prices, exacerbating a housing affordability problem. With her background in the real estate industry, Shelly was already familiar with many of the issues facing both prospective and current homeowners. Housing scarcity and affordability are issues in Idaho, as in most of the United States, and Shelly wanted to be part of the solution.

Shelly works for a nonprofit organization that develops housing on trust land, but they cannot keep up with the demand through their 15-20 homes per year. That is why she also works to educate her colleagues in real estate on options for first-time and lower-income buyers.

“I created my own class for the Idaho Real Estate Commission on down payment assistance and affordable housing options. Now it is offered twice per quarter and I can reach a lot more people, which is important with housing getting more and more out of reach for Idahoans,” said Shelly.

Her service on the committee was possible because she already had an understanding of the rules, jargon and regulations that are important to understand in the real estate industry. Without that background, Shelly said that it would be harder to step onto the committee.

“To be more welcoming and inclusive, there would need to be some kind of training on the industry and the key terms for newcomers,” said Shelly.

In the future, Shelly would like to continue to work on the issue of affordable housing in Ada County, and to see a policy requiring that a percentage of all future housing development be affordable. That policy would have to be adopted by the Ada County Commission.

For now, she is supporting the fellowship by recruiting other leaders in her community to participate, and she gave the keynote address to the incoming class in 2024.

“There aren’t enough people willing to step up,” said Shelly. “So many boards have open positions that no one applies for; they are barely able to make quorum. We need more representation from women of color in Idaho.”

Learn more about LCVEF’s Boards and Commissions Fellowship program with our state leagues and read more articles in our blog series.