Transit. Housing. Animal rights. How the City Council wants to change Boise in 2020
Where should the city of Boise focus its attention? To most members of the Boise City Council, the answers are affordable housing and improved transit.
At a meeting Tuesday, council members shared their top three priorities for the year and what they anticipated would help shape those goals. The ideas were shared with members of the city’s departments, who will look at associated costs over the next several weeks.
The ideas ran the gamut from new trees to a new zoning code. Here’s what each council member said:
Elaine Clegg (Council president)
Clegg said her first priority was robust options for transportation. She said that includes a strong “Vision Zero” initiative. Vision Zero is an international effort to end traffic fatalities and severe injuries through safer road engineering. The city does not control its own roads — the Ada County Highway District manages them, with the exception of state highways — but Clegg said she that if the city “strongly supported” recent Vision Zero policy ideas, Boise could “move the ball” to the agencies that do.
Her second priority is a renewable energy plan.
“While it doesn’t replace emission reduction ... we have to work on GHG reduction,” she said, referring to greenhouse gases, which are a cause of global warming. “We need to continue to do that in every way.”
She cited a NASA report that said planting trees could help. She wants the city to analyze and explore an initiative she calls the “City of Trees Challenge” — in which the city would plant about 100,000 trees over several years, one for each household.
It could be a 10-year project at a rate of planting about 27 trees every day, she said. Clegg said that level would allow the city to hit its goal of having tree canopy coverage of 24% of the city. A second piece would be to sponsor a tree for every Boise resident “in a forest somewhere.” She said she was not settled on the goal but wanted to keep exploring it.
Her final goal is to move forward with zoning changes.
Holli Woodings (Council president pro tem)
Woodings’ first goal stems from the work she has done to build relationships between the school districts and the city’s Parks and Recreation Department. She wants to explore more opportunities to ensure that children have access to quality programs after and outside of school.
Her second priority is to move forward on the “equitable and vibrant neighborhood plan.” It builds into the work the city is doing with the Energize Our Neighborhoods project, which is Woodings’ main policy focus. She wants to help the city work on making sure all neighborhoods are equally healthy and have the same access to education.
Woodings says her final goal is more robust transit.
T.J. Thomson
Building on his 2019 proposal to require humane treatment of all animals, Thomson said his first priority is to pass an “animal code.” The updates to the city code have been working their way through the city’s legal department, he said, and with new council members and a new mayor, he anticipates a new work session and a public hearing soon.
Thomson lists affordable housing and transportation as his other two top priorities. He also said he is interested in additional staffing of the fire department and a noise ordinance, which he calls “somewhat controversial.”
Lisa Sánchez
Sánchez wants to build on work she did in 2019, when one focus was a rental application fee ordinance that became part of city code in December. The ordinance caps application fees at $30, requires landlords to disclose application criteria and bans application fees for tenants moving into another unit owned by the same property owner. She wants to build on rights for renters and homeowners as part of the city’s efforts to improve housing access.
She also wants to “improve the way we do our work as it relates to diversity, equity and inclusion practices/”
Her third priority is to help build the city’s new zoning code. “I’d like to really embrace the opportunity to see how we shape our city as it grows and as it relates to the most vulnerable people in our community,” she said.
She and others have been working on language related to zoning changes. People often approach the council wanting rezoning, she said, and she hopes to address those instances while making space for “folks who need affordable housing.”
Patrick Bageant
Zoning tops Bageant’s list.
“It’s really hard for me to imagine anything more fundamental to how our city is in 30 or 40 years than how we’re growing,” he said. Zoning shapes not only the look and feel of neighborhoods, but also how efficiently space is used, he said.
He lists his second priority as the ideas behind Boise Climate Now, which former Mayor David Bieter proposed in his final State of the City address in September to combat climate change.
Bageant’s final goal involves improving “the sense of public trust” between city officials and the public.
“Many issues are contentious because they’re complicated, and in any complicated environment, there’s a certain amount of trust and communication that has to happen to work to get a consensus about it,” he said.
Jimmy Hallyburton
Hallyburton, who joined the council this month, said he wants to learn from city staffers and be supportive of those around him, which he said could mean getting involved in any number of goals set by other council members.
His second priority is emphasizing neighborhoods that are walkable and bikeable. He thinks that canal pathways could provide an “incredible opportunity” to improve connectivity in neighborhoods.
His final goal is to better empower neighborhood associations with resources and tools. That includes “holding them responsible to bring in more voices,” he said, both during public meetings and when the city asks for outreach.
This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
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