This Northwest Boise townhouse project drew neighbors’ ire 11 months ago. Now it’s back
A Northwest Boise housing development is being resurrected after it was put on hold last spring when neighbors protested.
Trilogy Development, which originally planned to build 134 townhouses, 120 apartments and 53 single-family homes on Hill Road Parkway west of Bogart Lane, has scheduled a neighborhood meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20, at Shadow Hills Elementary School, 8301 W. Sloan St.
It’s unclear what changes Trilogy may be proposing for the Prominence subdivision. The company has not yet submitted updated plans to the city of Boise. That’s likely to occur after the meeting.
Jane Suggs, a Boise land use consultant who represents Trilogy, said she wants to wait for the meeting to share details.
“I would rather just show everybody on Wednesday what that is instead of trying to describe it,” said Suggs, a senior planner with WHPacific Inc. “By the time I tell somebody and they tell somebody and they tell somebody, it’s always a little different, so I’d rather people see it in person.”
Richard Llewellyn, president of the North West Neighborhood Association, said Trilogy has not shared its plans. A couple of ideas have been talked about but he said he’s unsure whether they will be incorporated into the plans. “We don’t really know the changes,” he said.
More than 300 opponents of the development — on 38.4 acres bordered by Bogart Lane to the east and Duncan Lane to the west, and bisected by West Hill Road Parkway — turned out last March for an association meeting.
The site is part of an area the city annexed in 2014 and 2015. Farmers and other residents own 30 to 40 acres of undeveloped land near the planned subdivision. Among them are 10 acres farmed by Llewellyn’s family since the 1950s. He is turning part of it into certified organic pasture, where he plans to raise sheep or cattle.
Under the previous proposal, Trilogy, a Boise company owned by John A. Laude Sr., sought to rezone the area from largely R-1A, which allows for 2.1 dwelling units per acre to R-1C, which would allow an average of eight dwelling units per acre over the whole project.
In a previous application letter, Suggs said the most recent farmer of the property told the developers the land was unsuitable for farming. He said it was hard to get water to the property, the soil was not good and it had a lot of rocks.
Llewellyn and others have complained that while Boise tries to encourage new housing to solve its affordable-housing problem — where demand outstrips supply and the median sales price last year in Ada County was a record $314,000 — the effort has come at the expense of farm land on the city’s perimeter. Mayor David Bieter has said some Northwest Boise residents have unrealistic expectations of living an agricultural lifestyle in a growing city.
Trilogy has been involved in several high-profile project proposals around the Treasure Valley, including 154 townhouses near State and Roe streets, 105 upscale homes in Eagle, and Sabana, a small but controversial project on Boise’s southwestern edge.
This story was originally published February 15, 2019 at 11:28 AM with the headline "This Northwest Boise townhouse project drew neighbors’ ire 11 months ago. Now it’s back."
