Right now, the North Foothills (west of Highway 55) are in Ada County’s rural tier. However, the City of Eagle has been working for months to plan how to put 24,000 homes in that area (see their Foothills Sub-Area Plan under http://www.cityofeagle.com).

Developers like M3 and Suncor (Avimor) want to by-pass Ada County restrictions by going to Eagle, who’s never seen a plan for development it doesn’t LOVE. Amazingly, the County actually is proposing LESS growth for the North Foothills in its comprehensive plan (only 12,000 homes) than is Eagle! Since M3, alone, wants to build 12,000 homes in the North Foothills, the County restrictions don’t work for the developers.

Therefore, both M3 and Suncor are actively working for an “annexation route” to Eagle–they need to be adjacent to Eagle city limits before they can request annexation. They may get their wish soon, from what foothills residents are hearing.

Even if M3 and Suncor “do” ask for annexation, the County can say “no” if Eagle doesn’t provide services to the area they plan to annex. Right now, from what we hear, Eagle doesn’t have the money to provide water or sewer to the foothills. The County shouldn’t allow them to annex land for which they’ll provide nothing. (The City of Boise won’t annex land until they CAN provide city services–at least they’re doing it the right way!)

Rumor has it that Eagle may try to get around this by contracting with United Water to provide water (watch your water rates go up, Boise), and by taking over the “sewage treatment plants” the developers build in their planned communities.

If 24,000 homes go into the foothills as Eagle wishes, that will completely clog Highway 55 with cars…who will then take State Street or Hill Road (when State is a nightmare) into and out of Boise, or add to the horror otherwise known as Eagle Road.

As taxpayers, we should demand that every public cent spent to send three Ada County Commissioners to Sun Valley to listen to a developer infomercial be repaid. I also feel that it was highly inappropriate and prejudicial for them NOT to walk out of a presentation by M3, even if it were due to “schedule bumbling.”

The North Ada County Foothills Sub Area Plan, which directly affects M3, goes before the Ada County P&Z Commission tonight, then will go on to the AC Board of Commissioners. This is very irregular, completely unfair to the public and warrants further scrutiny. The Commissioners’ lapses in assuring objectivity, and the developers’ and Eagle’s disregard Blueprint for Good Growth and Communities in Motion, have become intolerable. Voters and citizens asleep, are you taking note and waking up?

Photo of Mayor Merrill at http://www.eaglechamber.com/

As one an attendees of the conference, and a person who talked to the Guardian before this piece was published, let me out myself as “a” source. I also notice other “voices” in the piece. I am sufficiently familiar with the Guardian’s desire for accuracy to not be surprised in that respect. I will verify that what the Guardian reported did happen. He may have even underplayed some of the points.

Let there be no mistake, this was a conference whose need was, and continues to be paramount. The ramifications of all these communities are every bit as significant as the Atlanta Gold Mine that was the subject of Mayor Bieter’s recent town hall meeting.

The Atlanta gold mine presents the possibility of pollution in the Boise River. Growth in general, and many of these planned communities in particular, promise, with absolute certainty, to affect traffic congestion, air pollutions, water (quality, price, and availability), school placement and funding, property taxes, local option sales taxes, mass transit and a host of other issues.

To that end, the Chamber gets bonus points for holding the conference. They also get them taken away for holding it in Sun Valley. This was a meeting that should have been held in one of the valley’s major auditoriums, with the lights of the media shining in, and ready access granted to the general public.

In my mind, the Guardian could have made a much bigger case about the backbeat of frustration, even anger and disgust, with which the development community views the local regulatory matrix. Every city and every county has its own comp plan. They compete with each other, openly and not so openly, on a variety of levels. The rules are, at best, amorphous and subjective. Enforcement is, at best, illogical and inconsistent. Businesses, developers, and ordinary citizens are all victimized by this situation.

The easiest way to get heads nodding in agreement at this gig was to state the obvious. Namely, the valley needs a good, consistent, region wide, comprehensive plan. It needs to be as detailed as possible. It needs to be rolled deeply into the code of all the various cities and counties. It needs to be rigidly, consistently, and impartially enforced.

And, it needs to happen soon.

Businesses, developers, and regular citizens all want it to happen. November would be about right.

Last November 2 out of every 3 county commissioners who represented the status quo lost their jobs. For the politicians who can read, that is about as clear a message as I have seen.

Maybe someone can help me understand a point here. Why is the event in Sun Valley not affected by the open meeting law that got the county commishes in so much hot water earlier?

EDITOR NOTE–Todd, the short version is that they are not meeting to “deliberate” anything on which they will have to make a “decision .” The meeting itself is legal, but getting information from one side of a matter they are likely to have to decide or is pending becomes “ex parte” communication and it is inappropriate.

Editor Dave…..You had a correspondent at the wine & cheese growth fest?? May we have a name please ? (I hope they were chamber members so that they got the $15 discount on meeting costs.)

Was Jim Tibbs at this conference?

EDITOR NOTE–Yes.