City Government
New Foothills Development Planned?
February 15, 2014 
We don’t know if there is a connection with the recent Quail Hollow golf course donation to the city, but it looks like there will be more foothills residents–conveniently overlooking a golf course–if a developer gets his way. We are short on details, but this memo made its way to the GUARDIAN.
APOLOGIES in advance for delay in posting this and future comments. Day job has us in southern hemisphere using wi fi that is sometimes difficult to access.
FROM Emily and Mark Boerner
We just returned from the Boise School District meeting. We had learned today that a local developer had asked the School Board to vote to designate 8.8 acres adjacent to his property as “surplus land”. The land in question is above the football field behind Hillside Junior High School. This would have allowed the sale of this land through a sealed bid. Based on our input, the Board postponed the vote and sent the issue back to their Land Use Committee for further review. The Committee is tasked with coordinating with neighborhood associations, the City, and other interested parties before bringing it back to the Board again.
After the meeting, we learned from the developer’s realtor about the nature of the proposed development. It consists of 128 ridge line units on 62 acres (above the 8.8 acres). The developer proposes that the easement at the south side of Quail Hollow golf course becomes the PRIMARY road in and out of the new development. This would be a huge road, and could result in 1000 trips per day. The secondary easement would drop into the Medicine Creek neighborhood. Existing trails in and around the Central Foothills and Stewart Gulch Neighborhoods and beyond would be lost to development. This proposed development is contrary to the City’s commitment to open space/trail connectivity, and it’s commitment to reducing ridge line development.
Next steps are to get involved through this Boise School District Land Use Committee as they open it up for public review, to coordinate with ACHD as 36th Street cannot accommodate such traffic, and to also coordinate with the City Planning Department as it vets this proposed development.
Please forward to interested parties, particularly the Stewart Gulch Neighborhood Association and Central Foothills Neighborhood Association. The developer is meeting with the City to discuss their proposal this Thursday… so the cogs in the wheels are turning. Thanks!
Emily and Mark Boerner
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Feb 16, 2014, 11:16 am
Spare our foothills from more development. We have enough already. What is the endpoint? Pave the whole thing over? Balance is needed. The foothills remain as about the only thing that provides perspective on the way Boise used to be. Open space is critical – and the US hasn’t learned that lesson yet. More development is already under way on Bogus Basin Road. It’s time to say enough is enough.
Feb 16, 2014, 5:19 pm
I am inclined to agree with Casmir. The foothills have been developed to a point beyond their ability to sustain the demand of the human habitat substructure there. We should leave well enough alone now and develop other areas and concentrate on in-file, high-rise, the east and south, leaving the northern expanse to heal.