Developer won Boise’s OK to build apartments, then changed his mind. What happened next
Everyone has dreams of how they want their city to change. You might want someone to fix up that old building down the road, while others might want to see it become a shiny new building. In downtown Boise, a compressed area of around 1½ square miles, sometimes these competing dreams can turn contentious in such a pressurized space.
A battle broke out in October over changing plans for housing at the Idaho Central Credit Union towers under construction at 200 N. 4th St. in downtown Boise. Meridian’s Ahlquist Development, which is developing the two-tower building with offices in a 13-story tower and residential units in the 11-story one, is set to seek formal approval on new plans for the development Dec. 2.
The request comes after a he-said-she-said quarrel between Ahlquist Development, the city of Boise and nearby neighbors when Ahlquist sought to shrink the project from over 100 rental apartments to 69 for-sale condominiums. A 2021 development agreement required the company to build a minimum of 100 units, with five of the units reserved for people with housing vouchers.
Ahlquist spent months trying to figure out how to make the development pencil out after poor market conditions delayed the start of construction on it for over a year. The shift was a way to do so while keeping the housing voucher requirements.
But neighbors with Better Change for East Downtown — who had fought the development since it was first proposed in 2020 — said the changes went against the company’s agreement with the city.
“The whole point of going through this tortured process was to end up with an agreement that would be enforced,” Dan Everhart, a nearby resident and member of Better Change for East Downtown, previously told the Idaho Statesman. “We’re concerned that in the couple years that have passed … that the city has been pretty casual in its enforcement of that agreement.”
Tommy Ahlquist, the founder and CEO of his namesake company, denied that the company had broken any agreement. He told the Statesman that the shift had verbal approval from the director of the city’s Planning and Development Services Department.
“We’ve been meeting with the city, and we’ve been very cooperative,” he said in October.
According to the agreement, city staff could approve minor deviations from the plan, but major modifications would need approval by the City Council, though the planning director determines what constitutes a minor and major modification.
Everhart said the shift amounted to a major modification, and he had some backing from staff within the department, who said the company could not go lower than 100 units without approval by the City Council and the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission. In October, when crews were already working, Ahlquist had submitted no such application.
After the Statesman’s reporting, the city changed its tune and required Ahlquist to seek formal approval of the changes.
Construction has continued, though the City Council still needs to sign off on the changes.
Insignificant changes, or a new precedent for Boise development?
Ahlquist has given the condominiums a name: The Bannock.
According to Geoff Wardle of Boise’s Clark Wardle law firm, which is representing Ahlquist, the original application for the project required a rezone of the property and the development agreement “was an integral part of that.”
“At the time the application contemplated the residential units would all be designated for rent,” Wardle wrote to the city in November. “The integration of residential units as part of the larger mixed-use development was an integral part of the City Council’s decision to rezone the property.”
But Wardle said that had Ahlquist submitted the application for the building after the city’s new zoning code went into effect in December 2023, no rezone or development agreement would have been needed.
The changes Ahlquist sought, he said, only changed the number of units from 100 to 69. No other parts of the plan were changed, including the plan to keep the five units for those with housing vouchers.
Housing choice vouchers are a federal program that help disabled, low-income and elderly individuals find housing in the private market, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The program pays a piece of participants’ rent.
“It remains a mixed-use project and it retains the critical residential elements, with for sale units and a commitment as to the specific number of rented units available for housing choice vouchers, without reducing the number of rented units below what was required originally in the development agreement,” Wardle said.
The changes, he said, would have no impact on the surrounding neighborhoods.
But Everhart and Better Change for East Downtown weren’t satisfied with the city only scheduling public meetings to approve the changes.
“Better Change for East Downtown’s concerns for this neighborhood and the city more broadly are not resolved by the city’s willingness to entertain this request from the developer,” Everhart said by email. “The city was promised more housing, but now seems willing to reduce the amount of housing at the request of the developer and their attorney.”
Everhart said that if approved, the changes to the agreement would set a precedent that could affect other neighborhoods too.
“The way we see it, the only justification to reduce ICCU’s housing by a third is to assert that the city of Boise no longer believes itself to have a housing shortage,” Everhart said. “If, on the other hand, we still need housing, then (the Planning and Zoning Commission) and the City Council should not allow 100 units of market-rate housing to be replaced with 64 units of million-dollar-plus condos.”
Boise’s Planning and Zoning Commission is set to hear the changes at 6 p.m., Monday, Dec. 2 on the third floor of Boise City Hall at 150 N. Capitol Blvd. Those interested can also participate online at cityofboise.org/public-meetings. Written testimony must be submitted by 5 p.m. five days before the hearing.
This story was originally published November 26, 2024 at 4:00 AM.
