Treasure Valley Permit Study, August 2026: The Houses Moved West

Every Treasure Valley city publishes its permit numbers a few weeks after the month closes. As of the third week of August 2026, the newest full month on the books everywhere is July, and the July reports landed with a very lopsided story.

Boise's total building valuation for the month was $1,037,444,157, up 361.87% from July 2025. But the city issued fewer permits than a year ago: 1,712 against 1,778, a change of -3.71%. That combination is the single most important thing to understand about this valley in 2026. Permit valuation and permit activity have come unglued from each other. One number is being driven by a handful of enormous industrial projects; the other reflects what contractors and homeowners are actually doing.

The split shows up cleanly in the city's own categories. Commercial valuation went to $954,436,021 from $186,570,533, up 411.57%, on 79 commercial permits against 54, up 46.30%. New residential valuation rose too, to $31,326,912 from $21,037,196, up 48.91%, but that is a rounding error next to the commercial column.

Boise's Development Trends report lists its ten largest permits of the month. Six of the ten are Micron permits at 8000 S Federal Way, and the four biggest are all pieces of the same building program: BLD26-00760 at $311,443,223, BLD26-00763 at $235,686,763, BLD26-00762 at $185,182,457 and BLD26-00761 at $92,591,229.

Put the top one against the city's own history and the scale lands: that one permit is worth more than every permit the City of Boise issued in the whole of July 2025, when total building valuation was $224,616,313.78.

The wider category tells the same story. Boise issued 10 New Commercial Buildings permits in July 2026 worth $907,590,880, against 3 permits worth $27,776,430 a year earlier. The largest non-Micron project on the list was the 1010 W. Jefferson Street commercial space and public parking facility at $33,000,000, a 206,302 square foot building downtown.

This matters to a homeowner for an unglamorous reason: it is why headlines about record construction do not match what you see on your street. The record is one campus.

Pull the new-house line out of each city's own July report and the ranking flips. Meridian issued 91 New Single Family Residential permits worth $21,002,494.47. Nampa issued 51 Residential: Single-Family permits worth $12,196,556. Boise issued 32, worth $11,457,030, down 17.95% by count and 10.05% by valuation from July 2025. The city's own narrative puts Boise single-family permits 22% below the calendar year 2025 pace.

Apartments are the one place Boise moved. The city recorded 108 multifamily living units in July 2026 against 40 a year earlier, worth $19,869,882 against $8,300,000, and states the July count was 170% above July 2025. That is a real reversal after a quiet spring, though the calendar year as a whole is still running 39% below 2025. Meridian added 4 multi-family permits covering 102 units worth $17,327,822.90 in the same month.

Accessory dwelling units, the valley's small-scale housing answer, went the wrong way in both cities. Boise reports ADU permits 33% below July 2025. Meridian issued none at all in July and only 3 in the entire fiscal year to date.

Nampa's fourplex boom hides inside its commercial column, because that is how the city files them. One development, Middlebury, is being permitted building by building: the city's own permit text describes it as a 4-plex development of 39 buildings with a total of 156 units, each on its own lot, with Buildings 12 and 13 issued in July at $795,000 apiece.

Trade permits are the closest public read on what is happening inside existing houses, and Boise's July numbers point at one thing: cooling.

Mechanical permits, the city's category for heating, ventilation and air conditioning work, rose to 567 from 514 a year earlier. It was the only trade count in the city that grew. Electrical fell to 294 from 382 and plumbing to 425 from 431. The dollars ran the other way on electrical, at $19,925,870.61 against $14,521,067.15, meaning fewer but far larger electrical jobs; mechanical valuation was $11,421,485.50 against $13,353,811.08 and plumbing $6,131,432.14 against $3,760,112.15.

Remodel work held roughly flat. Boise issued 147 Residential Additions, Alterations and Repairs permits worth $8,373,597.19, against 150 worth $8,788,942.34 in July 2025. Meridian counted 17 residential additions and remodels worth $985,153.14 and just 2 solar permits worth $132,825.

For the freshest read available anywhere, Meridian posts weekly permit lists, and those run into this month. In the week of August 10 to 16, 2026 the city issued 52 permits worth $23,923,291.46, of which the residential side was 37 permits worth $5,280,673.05, including 10 re-roof permits worth $199,937.32, one pool at $123,500 and one re-side job at $41,000. The week before, August 3 to 9, was 75 permits worth $27,164,852.91, again with exactly 10 re-roofs, worth $178,799.51. Compare the July 20 to 26 week, which carried 7 re-roofs worth $133,596. Roofing season is running hot in Meridian right now, and it is one of the few categories a homeowner can watch in near real time.

Boise publishes its own turnaround times alongside the monthly counts, which is unusual and useful. For the period May 1 to July 31, 2026, a simple homeowner addition, alteration or repair (Level 1) got its first review in 1 day against a target of under 1 day, and the full ready-to-issue clock averaged 9 days. A mid-complexity remodel (Level 2) averaged 8 days to first review, a day faster than last year, and 30 days to ready-to-issue.

New houses take longer. Single Family Level 1 averaged 10 days to first review and 40 days ready-to-issue; Level 2 averaged 11 days and 82 days. The report notes that ready-to-issue time includes applicant time when resubmittals are required, so a slow number there is not automatically the city being slow.

Apartments are the bottleneck. New Multi-Family Level 1 saw a 19 day first review, 8 days faster than last year, but a 257 day average ready-to-issue.

One number in this report is genuinely dated this month: as of August 4, 2026 there were 112 new single-family dwellings under building permit review in Boise, up from 102 at the same point in 2025. The applications are there. They are just not converting into issued permits at last year's rate.

There is also a queue of named projects in review, including The Sherwood at 48 units, Maple Grove Apartments at 126 units, Ascent at Overland at 138 units and Victory Apartments at 156 units.

Every figure on this page is printed in a public document published by the jurisdiction that issued the permits. Nothing here is a sum, an average or a ratio calculated by us. Where this page states that one figure is larger than another, both figures are printed in the cited reports and only the comparison is editorial.

Sources are the City of Boise Building Construction Report and Development Trends for July 2026, the City of Boise Permit Processing Timeframes report covering May 1 to July 31, 2026, the City of Meridian Monthly Building Department Report for the month ending July 2026 plus its weekly permit reports, and the City of Nampa Permit Activity Type Report for July 2026. All were downloaded and parsed on August 20, 2026.

Scope warning, and it is a real one: the three cities' report totals are not directly comparable. Boise's and Meridian's totals include trade permits; Nampa's July summary lists no electrical, mechanical or plumbing categories at all. Meridian reports on a fiscal year running October through September. Boise's five-year comparison table uses a wider permit scope than its own monthly building valuation line, which is why those two series are not additive and why no such addition appears here. The only reasonably like-for-like cross-city comparison we publish is the new single-family permit count, and even there the category labels differ by city, which is spelled out in the table above.

What is missing this month: the U.S. Census Building Permits Survey has not yet published its July place-level file, so there is no fresh county, metro or small-city comparison in this edition, and Kuna, Eagle, Star, Caldwell and the unincorporated counties have no July figure here. Caldwell's building reports page and the FRED metro series both refused automated access on the day of collection. Ada County publishes annual permit archives but no monthly summary. Those gaps are recorded rather than filled.

These figures are public records. Reporters, agents and analysts are free to quote them with attribution to this study and to the originating city report.