Everything published here

Guides to building a custom home in St. Anthony

By Kjel Jones — independent custom-home researcher for St. Anthony and the Fremont County valley floor. Not a builder and not a general contractor. Licensed Idaho real estate agent, LPT Realty.

Published 2026-08-14 · every figure below was checked against its primary source on the date shown.

All guides, newest first

• Who signs the paychecks in St. Anthony: 1,469 workers, a $17,596 per-capita income, and the industries behind bothThe comprehensive plan's economy chapter, counted: 1,469 people in the 2020 labor force, per-capita income of $17,596 against Idaho's $33,841 and the nation's $38,332, education/health care leading employment at 19.6% with retail at 16.5%, Dr. Richard Gardner's 2008 county strategy, and a sold-out 29-lot industrial park by the airport.Published 2026-10-01
• St. Anthony's census numbers: 3,606 people, 1.8% growth, and the nearly flat line builders plan aroundThe comprehensive plan's population chapter, counted: 3,606 people in 2020 (27% of Fremont County's 13,388), growth of 6.5% then 1.8% across two decades, 1,156 households in 1,300 units with 90 vacant, density near 2,300 per square mile - plus the plan's own doubt that the census caught the recent building.Published 2026-09-30
• St. Anthony's street grid: one bridge, one signal, 24.7 miles, and the 350-foot block the city wants backThe comprehensive plan's transportation chapter, counted: a single bridge joins the two halves of the city, 24.4 miles of road in 2005 (18.4 paved, six gravel, five bridges) grew to 24.7 by 2019, one traffic signal at Main and Bridge, sidewalks on most streets north and half the south - plus two policies, the 350-foot block grid and corridor preservation, that reach into new building lots.Published 2026-09-29
• How annexation into St. Anthony works: the 60/50 consent rule, the consent a sewer line can imply, and the 28-day clockIdaho's rewritten annexation statute (2024, amended 2026) as it applies around St. Anthony: the consent path and the city-initiated path, the 60-percent-of-parcels plus 50-percent-of-area threshold, 45-day and 28-day notice clocks, implied consent from city utility connections by date, the five-acre farm and forest holdout right, nonconsenting-owner protections, and the appeal deadline.Published 2026-09-28
• What the hazards plan says about St. Anthony: river flooding and dam failure rank firstSt. Anthony's 2023 comprehensive plan, quoting the county hazard rankings: River Flooding and Dam Failure rated highest, a floodplain that hugs the river in town but spreads in lower-lying belt ground, three upstream dams with drawn inundation maps, a low wildfire rating from the CWPP, and the policies - floodplain avoidance, dual subdivision access - that follow.Published 2026-09-26
• Connecting to St. Anthony water and sewer: two wells under study, a plant with headroom, and the 300-foot ruleSt. Anthony's 2023 comprehensive plan, in its own words: a water system 'approaching its capacity' with a study underway and a third well under consideration, a sewer plant with room to grow that already treats Parker's wastewater, a quarter-mile lift-station limit, the 300-foot connection policy, and plat conditions that connect belt subdivisions before the first house is occupied.Published 2026-09-25
• St. Anthony storm water: a study of your own site first, the city's minimal system secondThe city's 2023 comprehensive plan calls its stormwater system 'minimal' and expects new developments to study keeping water on site before connecting to city pipes. Disturb more than an acre - or be part of a larger project - and the federal SWPPP process applies. What the plan actually says, and what to ask before you build.Published 2026-09-24
• The Area of City Impact: the belt around St. Anthony that decides which desk reviews your plansIdaho Code 67-6526 puts a belt around every city where the county still governs and the city advises. The 2023 comprehensive plan's Appendix B republishes the Fremont County agreement: county administration, 45-day notice, a 15-day city comment window, a 300-foot split-parcel rule - and a 2024 statute that flipped which rulebook applies.Published 2026-09-21
• What seismic design category is St. Anthony? B, on Site Class B soilThe USGS ASCE 7-16 design service returns Seismic Design Category B for St. Anthony's coordinates at Site Class B, Risk Category II - queried 11 September 2026. The category follows the soil, and the service's blank-field default returns no category at all.Published 2026-09-17
• Which building-code editions actually apply to a St. Anthony permit todayThe state board rule IDAPA 24.39.30, effective 7-1-24, adopts the 2018 IBC, IRC, IEBC and IECC - plus one 2021 mass-timber slice of the IBC - and amends the residential code in ways a house plan feels, from deleted sprinkler requirements to replaced footing tables. Every edition, in one table.Published 2026-09-16
• Idaho has one energy code, and neither desk in St. Anthony can add to itIdaho Code 39-9701 makes the 2018 IECC, as state-amended, the single Idaho Energy Conservation Code and preempts cities and counties from adopting any energy requirement that differs from or is more extensive than it - through any code, ordinance, process, policy, or guidance. Only Chapter 1 paperwork stays local.Published 2026-09-15
• Ten business days: the 2025 state law that puts a written clock on your permit applicationIdaho Code 39-4117, added by the 2025 legislature as chapter 272, obliges every permit-issuing city or county to publish its process in detail, tell you in writing within ten business days what a residential application is missing, and rule on completeness on the same clock. Complete does not mean approved.Published 2026-09-14
• Who can draw your plat: the county keeps a list, and one firm on it is in St. AnthonyEvery plat must carry the registration number or seal of the engineer or land surveyor who prepared it, certifying the plat is accurate and its monuments exist — and the County Surveyor then checks the data. The county publishes its own list of more than two dozen firms; Teton View Surveying holds the one St. Anthony address.Published 2026-09-12
• Six lots or fewer: the short plat, Fremont County's administrative path for splitting groundA short plat divides land into six or fewer lots counting the leftover parent parcel, and it is decided by the Administrator rather than the Commission — with notice mailed to owners within 1,000 feet and 14 days to comment. The clocks are hard: the preliminary plat is void in a year, extensions capped at two.Published 2026-09-11
• Amending a recorded plat in Fremont County: the Administrator's desk, and the one thing an amendment cannot doPlat amendments are reviewed by the Administrator rather than the Commission, must overlay the originally recorded plat, and need every affected owner's signature — but new parcels may not be created by amendment. The county's minor-amendment form prints a $200 surveyor fee plus $25 per lot and a 7–10 working-day review.Published 2026-09-10
• Twenty items, sixteen copies, one sanitary restriction: what goes on a final plat in Fremont CountyAppendix L Division 2 lists twenty numbered items a final plat must carry — a surveyor's certification over monuments, easements with book-and-page references, consent from every interest holder including mineral rights, tax clearance from the Assessor and Treasurer, and a sanitary restriction under I.C. 50-1326.Published 2026-09-09
• Canal assessments follow the lot: the five things a seller must disclose in writingWhen a subdivision inside an irrigation entity was recorded without providing water deliveries, Fremont County code makes the seller tell the buyer in writing — at earnest money — that assessments continue, must be paid, and are a lien on the land. The buyer's exit is a petition for exclusion.Published 2026-09-08
• One part in ten thousand: the accuracy standard your plat has to meetFremont County requires plat closure errors of no more than one part in 10,000 — a ten-thousand-foot boundary may miss by a single foot. Scale is one inch to 100 feet, shown in both words and a scale bar, with a legend that separates existing features from proposed ones.Published 2026-09-07
• An RV park needs five acres before anything else — and every incidental use has to be in the first applicationNo parcel under five acres may be used for a recreational vehicle park, and density is capped at eight spaces per acre. Incidental uses from laundry to boat launching are permitted, but none is allowed unless it was approved as part of the park's original approval.Published 2026-09-05
• Four spaces an acre, or six if you double the open space — what a manufactured home park has to provideManufactured home parks must be under single ownership with spaces rented rather than sold. Four spaces per acre at 25 percent open space, six at 50 percent, a fifty-foot minimum space width, two tandem parking spaces per home and guest parking at one space for every four.Published 2026-09-04
• 700 dairy cows, 500 horses, 82,000 chickens — the numbers that make a farm a regulated facilityA confined animal feeding operation is defined by three tests together: ninety days of confinement, ground that grows nothing during the season, and animal numbers at published thresholds. The area of influence runs a mile from the pens and lagoons rather than from the farm's property line.Published 2026-09-03
• No address, no building permit — and a landlocked parcel gets no address without a recorded easementBuilding officials shall not issue a building permit until an official property address has been approved, and landlocked parcels are not addressed until access is determined by a recorded easement. Chain those together and unrecorded access blocks the permit outright. St. Anthony sits on its own address grid.Published 2026-09-02
• A mobile home may only go in a park — a manufactured home can go on your lot, at 3:12 pitchFremont County treats these as different things under Idaho Code 39-4105. A mobile home may only be permanently located in a mobile home park. A manufactured home can go on a private lot, subject to a permanent enclosed foundation, a roof pitch of at least 3:12, and skirting that matches its surroundings.Published 2026-09-01
• The waiver on every county permit: giving up the right to complain about farmingEvery Class I and Class II permit carries a nuisance waiver covering noise, dust and smoke at all hours across the neighbourhood, community and county. Plus the one-year condition in the state statute that the county's own summary leaves out.Published 2026-08-29
• The Airport Overlay around Stanford Field: thirty feet, and the barn that needs a permitFour zones project thousands of feet from the runway. Structures of thirty feet or less are fine in the horizontal and conical zones — above that, even agricultural outbuildings that are normally exempt need a permit, and so does planting a tall tree.Published 2026-08-28
• The agricultural building exemption, and the three ways a pole barn loses itThe county's Agricultural Structure Application defines what counts as a farm building and names three uses that break the exemption: processing, use by the public, and human habitation — which the form defines as living, sleeping or cooking.Published 2026-08-27
• Fremont County’s own permit packet prints two different setback listsThe sample site plan page and the site plan sheet sit one after the other in the same county document and give different setback figures. The form never says how they relate — so here is what each page prints, what the drawing has to show, and the line the county puts in capitals.Published 2026-08-26
• Two clocks run on a St. Anthony building permit, and only one desk prints bothBoth the city and the county give you 180 days to collect an approved permit — the same sentence, on both forms. Only Fremont County goes on to say how long the permit itself is good for. The city application does not state a period at all.Published 2026-08-25
• The eleven questions Fremont County asks before it looks at your plansThe last page of the county building permit packet is a Zoning Questionnaire you fill in yourself, and every question on it is a routing question. Three of them catch valley-floor ground around St. Anthony, Parker and Egin — canals, floodplain, and a line about underground utilities that is not a question at all.Published 2026-08-24
• Inside St. Anthony city limits you need two permits, and the order is not optionalThe city’s own application says zoning approval must come before the building permit is issued, with a deposit due before anything is even accepted. The sequence, in the city’s own words.Published 2026-08-22
• Who has to stamp your plans in St. Anthony — three different triggers, two different desksThe city wants a registered design professional on the submittal. The county wants an engineer or architect at a stated snow load, and wants stamped plans unconditionally for one kind of structure. Whether any of them applies to you depends on where the lot is and what you are building.Published 2026-08-21
• City water and sewer, or your own well and septic? It depends which side of the line you are onInside St. Anthony the city wants its hookup fees paid before it will approve the building permit. Outside, the septic permit is required at submittal and a different agency issues it. Two different bills, two different timelines.Published 2026-08-20
• Building on inherited or farm ground around St. Anthony — the checks that come before a builderGround that has been in a family for decades often has no separate parcel, no recorded access and no address. The order to work through, and why the landowner signature line on the county permit is the one that catches people.Published 2026-08-19
• Shop house or barndominium? The difference the county cares about is heightFremont County caps buildings at 30 feet, and accessory structures at 25. Whether your shop is the house or a building beside it changes which cap applies, and it is decided long before framing.Published 2026-08-18
• The city and the county do not cite the same building codes — and both are in St. AnthonyFremont County lists the 2018 IRC, IBC and IECC. The city’s own permit application lists a different set, including a 2017 electrical code and three 2012 mechanical codes. Same town, two code lists, and nobody publishes the comparison.Published 2026-08-17
• In St. Anthony you build the sidewalk before you get the keysA line on the city building permit application that both the owner and the builder sign: sidewalk, street and concrete curb and gutter along the whole frontage, required before a certificate of occupancy is issued. A real cost that does not exist on a county lot.Published 2026-08-15
• St. Anthony is the one town in Fremont County that issues its own building permitsThe county says so in a single sentence on its own Building page, and it names no other town. Which desk you walk into decides your codebook, your fees, your inspector and whether you owe sidewalk before you can move in.Published 2026-08-14
• The St. Anthony District snow load is 50 PSF — the lowest in Fremont CountyFremont County Ordinance 2005-02 sets it, and here the county is more cautious than the state engineering study, not less. What 50 PSF changes about your roof, your trusses and one costly county rule you may fall below.Published 2026-08-14
• Building a barndominium in St. Anthony, Idaho — what the county actually requiresNo builder in the upper valley owns this lane, and the statewide post-frame companies marketing in from Post Falls do not tell you the one Fremont County rule that hits nearly every barndominium design.Published 2026-08-14
• What does it cost to build a custom home in St. Anthony, Idaho?Nobody local publishes a price. What is publishable are the fixed public costs on both sides of the city line, the site-work variables that actually move a bid, and the five line items that make two quotes comparable.Published 2026-08-14

How these are written

Every load-bearing figure on this site comes from a document published by the body that issued it — a county ordinance, a city permit application, a state study — fetched and read rather than summarised from somewhere else. The date it was checked is printed on the page. Where a source could not be verified, the page says so instead of quoting it.

That discipline costs pages. It is also the only reason to trust one.

The clearest example is a document this site deliberately does not use. The City of St. Anthony hosts a 104-page zoning title under a filename ending “FINAL.” Every page of it is footed “Draft,” and its section numbering does not match the code the city cites on its own current permit form. It would supply a great deal of useful detail about setbacks and heights. None of it appears here.

Common questions

What is on this page?

Every dated guide published on this site, newest first. Each one answers a single question a person building in or around St. Anthony actually asks, from primary documents, with the date each figure was checked shown on the page.

How often does a new one appear?

Several a week. Pages are written ahead and publish on their own date, so what you see here is what has gone live rather than what is planned.

Who writes them?

Kjel Jones, an independent researcher who is not a builder and holds no contractor licence. Who he is and what the limits of this site are is set out on the about page.

Are the figures kept current?

Every figure is checked against its primary source at the time of writing and the date is printed on the page. Fees and forms change; where a document could not be verified, the page says so rather than quoting it anyway.

Why does this site refuse to quote some numbers?

Because a number whose only source is unreliable is worse than no number. The clearest example is the city's zoning title: the copy published on the city's own website is marked as a draft on every page and its section numbering does not match the code the city cites elsewhere, so this site does not reproduce figures from it.

Can I ask for a guide on something specific?

Yes. Call or text (208) 656-1745, or use the form on any page. Questions that come in repeatedly are the ones that get written up.