Idaho’s top court just heard arguments against a new Boise homeless shelter. What happened
A Boise neighborhood association that objected to a new homeless shelter on State Street says the decision to allow it was “arbitrary and capricious.”
The Veterans Park Neighborhood Association made its case before the Idaho Supreme Court after losing to the city of Boise in 4th District Court last year.
The neighborhood association sued the city of Boise in 2022 after city leaders voted to allow Interfaith Sanctuary, a low-barrier homeless shelter, to relocate from River Street in downtown Boise’s southwest corner to the former Salvation Army building at 4308 W. State St.
The association argued in its lawsuit that the Boise City Council’s approval of the shelter violated the law and its due process rights, and that a plan for how the shelter would operate did not mitigate the harm some neighbors worried it would cause, the Idaho Statesman reported. During public hearings on Interfaith’s request to move the shelter, the city heard several hours of testimony from opponents who claimed the shelter would increase crime and decrease property values in the neighborhood.
Ada County District Judge Cynthia Yee-Wallace ruled that the neighborhood association had not sufficiently shown the shelter would harm its residents.
The City Council vote, which was 4-2, with Patrick Bageant and Luci Willits opposed, overturned a decision by the Planning and Zoning Commission to deny Interfaith a conditional use permit. The commission decided the shelter would harm the surrounding area and that no number of conditions would mitigate the impact, according to prior reporting by the Statesman.
The neighborhood association appealed the district court’s decision to the state’s highest court. Meanwhile, Interfaith moved forward with construction on its new location, including adding a fence, which the City Council required, to separate the project from the residential area behind it.
‘Arbitrary and capricious’
On Friday, attorneys for the neighborhood association, the city of Boise and Interfaith presented oral arguments before the state’s highest court.
Brian Ertz, a lawyer representing the neighborhood association, argued first that the City Council wrongfully granted the conditional use permit. He said city leaders did not properly articulate the standard by which the permit was approved, in violation of the Local Land Use Planning Act, and that the City Council’s decision to overturn the Planning and Zoning Commission’s denial was “arbitrary and capricious.” Ertz also asserted that the district court erred in its decision.
“At the heart of it, is that the Boise City Council, in overturning the commission’s denial of the application — the denial that was premised on overwhelming evidence for which everyone agreed that impacts will migrate to the State Street location, that property impacts will migrate — the council’s decision never articulates, let alone discloses in its recent statement, the determining principles it uses in overturning the Planning and Zoning Commission’s denial,” Ertz said.
Justice Gregory W. Moeller questioned Ertz about whether the neighborhood association’s problem is with the fact that the City Council set conditions, or that it doesn’t like the manner of the conditions. Ertz said they didn’t like the manner of conditions.
“We do not think that the manner that the council set in the conditions is anything more than arbitrary and capricious,” Ertz said.
The city placed dozens of conditions on Interfaith to try to mitigate the impact of the shelter on neighbors.
Just a ‘difference of opinion’?
James Smith, deputy city attorney for the city of Boise, argued that the neighborhood association failed to demonstrate any errors in the council’s decision to overrule the commission and issue the conditional-use permit.
“This was a land use hearing in a record of unprecedented scale in this city,” Smith said. “Substantial evidence supports the approval that emerged.”
Smith said Boise city code doesn’t specify a process for how conditions are arrived at.
Justice Colleen D. Zahn questioned Ertz’s notion that the council’s decision not to examine additional conditions was arbitrary and capricious. She asked Smith whether there was anything applicable in Boise city code that directs the commission, before denying an application, to consider whether “imposition of conditions will mitigate.”
“That’s where I’m struggling,” Zahn said. “’You should have done this.’ ‘We don’t think we have enough information to do that.’ ‘Well, we think you do.’ That’s a difference of opinion. It’s not arbitrary and capricious.”
The attorney for Interfaith, Geoffrey Wardle, argued after Smith that the court’s job is to ensure the process was followed and not to have additional hearings on the merits of the case.
“It’s not the function of courts to be super land use planning entities,” Wardle said.
Wardle said the Planning Commission made two errors: when it attempted to establish ad hoc standards for a security plan that was not part of city code, and when it “threw up their hands” and decided it was not worth considering conditions to be placed upon the shelter’s operation because it didn’t think there could be any mitigation of the potential adverse impacts of moving a homeless shelter into the area.
He said the standard approval process involves involves not whether the proposed use will adversely affect other properties in the vicinity, but whether the proposed use will have adverse impacts even if Interfaith complies with all conditions imposed.
After about an hour, Chief Justice G. Richard Bevan said the court would take the arguments under advisement. A decision is expected within the next few months.
This story was originally published October 11, 2024 at 5:58 PM.
