"Residents chose to purchase homes within the Harris Ranch CID and they were on notice." That line comes from a unanimous Idaho Supreme Court ruling issued in February 2026, and it settled a fight that had been running for years in one of Boise's most established master-planned neighborhoods. The court sided with the Harris Ranch Community Infrastructure District on nearly every count a group of homeowners had raised, including whether they could still contest a bond tied back to a 2010 vote they had no part in. The short version: once you own inside a CID, the tax obligation attaches to the property, not to the original buyer, and the courts are not inclined to unwind it after the fact.
That ruling matters well beyond Barber Valley. Eagle has its own pair of these districts, wrapped around two of the city's fastest-growing addresses: Avimor in the foothills and Valnova along Highway 16. If you're comparing homes in either community, the sale price on the listing is only part of what you're agreeing to pay every year for decades. And unlike the price, this number does not show up in a standard online home value estimate.
What a CID actually does to your tax bill
A Community Infrastructure District is a financing tool the Idaho Legislature created in 2008 under Idaho Code Title 50, Chapter 31. It lets a developer front the cost of roads, water systems, parks and public safety infrastructure, then get repaid over time through a special assessment or bond levy charged to the homes that benefit. It's a legitimate, state-sanctioned way to make growth pay for itself rather than pushing those costs onto a city's general fund. Harris Ranch in Boise was Idaho's first, formed in 2010. Avimor's CID followed in 2015, making it one of only two in the state at the time.
The mechanism is straightforward. The CID appears as its own line item on the annual county property tax statement, separate from the city's base levy and separate from any HOA dues. It is not optional and it does not go away when you sell the house. The next owner inherits whatever years remain on the bond.
Two very different price tags in the same city
Avimor and Valnova are both inside Eagle city limits now, but their CID math looks nothing alike, and the gap is wide enough that a buyer comparing the two needs the actual parcel number, not a neighborhood average.
| Avimor | Valnova (formerly Spring Valley) | |
|---|---|---|
| CID formed | 2015 | Spring Valley CID No. 1, April 2012 |
| Footprint | Roughly 17,000 planned acres across Ada, Boise, and Gem counties | About 6,000 acres in Eagle's northwest foothills |
| Homes at build-out | Over 8,700 when fully built | Roughly 7,100 at full entitlement |
| Estimated annual CID cost | About $1,151 with the homestead exemption on a $400,000 home, scaling to roughly $4,751 on a $1.6 million home, per Avimor's CID plan | Proposed new-lot assessments ran $842 to $5,376 per year depending on bond series, per a 2023 public notice |
| What it funds | Roadways, water storage and delivery, parks, pathways | Roads, utilities, and public infrastructure tied to phase-one build-out |
Avimor was annexed into the city of Eagle by a 3-1 council vote in March 2023, over a Planning and Zoning Commission recommendation to deny it. A legal challenge from the community group SOS Eagle was dismissed in March 2024. Valnova delivered its first finished lots to builders in 2024, and its first residents moved in during fall 2025. Both communities are still building out, which means both districts still have room to add new bond series and new assessment tiers as later phases come online.
Notice that the Avimor number scales with home value while the Valnova figure in that 2023 notice was priced per unit. That's not a rounding difference. It reflects two different bond structures, and it's exactly why a "typical CID cost for Eagle" figure is close to useless for an actual buyer. You need the number for your parcel, not the district average.
The reassessment step that lands after closing
There's a second wrinkle that catches buyers off guard even outside the CID neighborhoods, and it compounds the CID line when it applies inside one. Ada County can reassess a property at its purchase price effective the following January 1. Buy an Eagle home in the spring or summer, and the county's next valuation cycle may catch up to what you actually paid rather than what the seller had been taxed on. On an entry-level Avimor purchase, that can mean the total bill, CID included, steps up meaningfully in year two. It's worth budgeting for the second-year number, not just the one printed on the seller's most recent statement.
Eagle's base city levy sits around 0.36% of net taxable value, the lowest among Ada County's larger cities. That low base is part of why the CID line can look so large by comparison on a first tax bill. You're not paying an unusually high Eagle tax rate. You're paying a low Eagle rate plus a separate, sizable district assessment that a lot of online valuation tools never account for.
What the court ruling actually changes for a buyer
The February 2026 ruling didn't touch Avimor or Valnova directly. It resolved a dispute specific to Harris Ranch, where a taxpayer group argued the original 2010 election was flawed, that a road improvement project didn't meet the legal definition of infrastructure that can be reimbursed through the district, and that the whole city should have voted rather than just the affected parcels. The court rejected nearly every argument, including a challenge to a 2021 bond, ruling it was too tightly linked to the 2010 vote to be relitigated more than a decade later.
For anyone shopping in Eagle's CID neighborhoods, the relevance is practical rather than legal. The court confirmed that these assessments are durable. They survive a change in ownership. They are difficult to challenge once bonds are issued, and Idaho law gives residents a narrow 60-day window to contest the legality of a district at formation, a window that closed on Avimor and Valnova's original bonds long before most current buyers were shopping. If you're weighing a home in either community, the assessment on the tax bill is not a temporary irritant you can hope to fight later. It's a fixed cost of ownership for as long as you hold the property, and possibly a factor in resale if a future buyer runs the same math you're running now.
Get the number before you write the offer
The fix here isn't complicated, but it does require a step most online searches skip. Before making an offer on a home in Avimor or Valnova, pull the parcel-specific CID assessment from the Ada County Treasurer's records rather than relying on a listing sheet or a general estimate. Ask specifically:
- What is this parcel's current annual CID assessment, and does it include the homestead exemption?
- What bond series is this parcel attached to, and how many years remain on it?
- Has the district approved or discussed additional bonds that could raise the assessment on existing lots?
That third question matters because both districts are still growing. New phases can mean new infrastructure needs, and new infrastructure needs can mean new bonds. A parcel that looks settled today may see its assessment revisited as the surrounding community builds out over the next decade.
FAQ
Does the CID assessment show up if I search a home's estimated value online? Generally no. It's a separate tax line tied to the parcel's district membership, not a factor most automated valuation tools pull in.
Can I avoid the CID by buying an older, already-built section of Avimor? No. The assessment attaches to the parcel and its bond series, not to how new the home is. Older sections carry whatever assessment was set for their original bond, which may be different from the rate on newer phases.
Is the CID the same thing as an HOA fee? No. An HOA fee funds private community amenities and is set by a homeowners association. A CID assessment is a government-authorized tax that funds public infrastructure like roads and water systems, and it appears on your county property tax bill.
If you're comparing a home in Avimor or Valnova against something elsewhere in Eagle, Meridian or Boise, the sale price is the easy part to compare. The decades-long obligation attached to the parcel is the part that actually changes what you're signing up to pay every year, and it's worth getting in writing before you're under contract, not after. Valentine Realty pulls the parcel-specific CID figure on every Avimor and Valnova offer we write, so you know the real annual number before you commit to it. Reach out and we'll walk the specific parcel with you.
