City Government
Wayward Homes Get Ticketed
November 14, 2005 
The “Mother of All Parking Tickets” have been issued by the Boise Code Enforcement Division and city officials are now looking for a tow truck big enough to handle the impound.
Storage fees could amount to windfall profits for whomever gets the call.
The parking violation is for three HOUSES that got dumped at the intersection of Federal Way and Protest along with three more stashed in the 1200 Block of Euclid. That is correct: HOUSES looking for homes.
Criminal citations for maintaining an “attractive nuisance” and a zoning violation for “prohibitive use” were issued October 6 by the Boise Planning and Development office to a “Michael Harrison.” That dude may not even be the owner of the houses, but he is apparently the guy who allegedly parked them.
According to the code enforcement staffers, this case has “gone beyond” a ticket. The City Council is set to grapple with the matter on December 6. The City Attorney is also deeply involved, but the GUARDIAN has been told the deal is the result of BSU expansion and was not a result of the recent moratorium on “infill houses.”
If this case had involved a GUARDIAN reader with a 1989 Dodge parked at a downtown meter, you can bet it would have been ticketed, towed, stored, and probably sold at auction by now.
We still think Bill Clark or David Hale could get a variance and plant these homeless homes between some mansions along Warm Springs Ave. These skinny houses might even fit on the median of Harrison Boulevard.
To insure more advertising-free Boise Guardian news, please consider financial support.
Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Nov 14, 2005, 3:13 pm
Criminy, Guardian! You’re making this thing WAY more complicated than it has to be. These houses are on a vacant lot… just hook up the electricity and plumbing, slap in a few juniper bushes, and sell ’em for $225,000 per unit. Their new owners can be in by Thanksgiving! (As they sit, they’re no less attractive than many of the new developments that are going in across the valley.)
Nov 14, 2005, 3:35 pm
Proving once again that “attractive” is in the eye of the beholder. If they plant them …will real houses grow?
Nov 14, 2005, 4:39 pm
My 1974 Ford van got a ticket while I was parked legally attending a meeting.
Nov 15, 2005, 7:44 am
Our new Gov. is going to have a new house on a hill ( the old Simplot house), and the State of Idaho is going to spend millions of $ to fix it up! So why can’t Boise have a new house on a hill for our Mayor? For two or three million we could whip this house into shape…or maybe we could save some money to have this as a new school… or a new library, or take it down and use in for a new convention center? Please Boise use your head… many things we can do with it!
Nov 15, 2005, 8:35 am
Not to diminish the “creepiness-factor” of having the governor inhabit a mansion on a hill(like the lord overlooking the peasants), but the renovations for the house are all private contributions, and nothing out of the state general fund.
And still off-topic, who in their right mind would buy a $2M house and spend $3M worth of renovations?
Nov 15, 2005, 8:47 am
Hey Porcupine, great ideas… I have another good one. Let’s get some rednecks to put blocks under these glorified trailer houses and we’ll have Boise’s newest homeless shelter…
Nov 15, 2005, 10:20 am
NR
Not to argue with you about the cost of rehabbing the Simplot house… it has cost us taxpayers money.
Simplot donates a old house the need to be fixed (MAI appraisal.. Made as instructed? )and guess what… he pays less tax, Federal and State! And who will be paying for the day to day operation of a house that big?
Simplot donates a money losing ice rink (Ice World) to the city, and guess what he pays less taxes Federal and State, and us poor tax payers get to pay for the losses out of the city budget.
I hope that I am as wise as he is when I am 90!
Nov 15, 2005, 10:34 am
I like Ryan’s idea…afterall they are “homeless” “shelters”. You don’t really want to get me started on Smirken’ Dirk and his being an example for all to see of what’s really wrong with the entire living world. Conspicuous consumption doesn’t even begin to cover this one. JR could afford to build the house and live in it. Even then it wasn’t likely as “grand” as his fortune would have allowed it to be.
Nov 15, 2005, 1:27 pm
Tam
Dirk isn’t going to live in JR’s house…. any guesses who will be the first governor to live in it will be… my money is on his ex son-in-law, Butch. Something ironic about that… At least Butch will know where JR has hidden the key!
Nov 16, 2005, 1:02 pm
Homeless shelters? No, too small. Trade those in for the Simplot joint – now that would house quite a few familes! Let the gov move into these two places…one for public affairs and one for his family.
It really would be a good social experiment to see who would run for office if they were expected to live on the bench in “infill” type of homes.
Nov 22, 2005, 12:22 pm
Hey Guardian,
You may already know this, but two of the wayward houses may have a new home soon.
A bulldozer showed up here on the 1400/1500 block of Columbus Street today to knock down a small, somewhat run-down existing home. My husband went over to inquire, and he reports that two of the skinny homes at the Protest-Federal Way intersection (just a few blocks from here) are destined for the lot.
The shoutgun homes won’t change our block’s character much, especially since there’s already a massive (for this area) two-story home on the adjacent lot, and ours is a block that’s roughly half rental, half owner-occupied. It’s no Crescent Rim, in other words, and the Depot Bench Neighborhood Association wouldn’t have objected to this change because I doubt anyone on our block is above the 15% tax bracket.