Idaho Supreme Court says Boise council approved homeless shelter arbitrarily. What now?
Idaho’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled against the construction of a new homeless shelter on State Street for Boise’s Interfaith Sanctuary, siding with neighbors who had expressed concerns about whether the shelter would increase crime and decrease property values in the neighborhood.
The decision overturned the ruling of the 4th District Court in Ada County, which found that the Veterans Park Neighborhood Association had not sufficiently shown that the shelter would harm neighborhood residents. And it represents a dramatic climax in a legal saga that began in 2022, when the neighborhood association sued the city after the City Council voted to allow the sanctuary, a low-barrier homeless shelter, to relocate from River Street in downtown Boise to a former Salvation Army building at 4308 W. State St.
The state’s highest court agreed with the neighborhood association that the City Council’s decision to grant a permit that allowed the shelter to move to the State Street location was “arbitrary and capricious and based on unlawful procedure,” according to a summary of the decision the court released Wednesday.
The council overturned a denial of the application by the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission. Council Members Patrick Bageant and Luci Willits voted against the council’s decision at the time. Boise’s code, the court said, doesn’t allow City Council to start from scratch in reviewing a decision from that commission unless it finds that the commission made a mistake.
“A mere difference of opinion, like the one in this case, (does) not suffice,” the court’s summary of its ruling says.
At a hearing in October, Brian Ertz, a lawyer representing the neighborhood association, said city leaders didn’t properly explain the standard by which they approved a conditional-use permit the shelter required, the Statesman reported at the time.
“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.
The Supreme Court’s decision reversed the lower court’s ruling, sending the case back to the district court “with instructions to invalidate the action of the city council,” it says. The district judge, Cynthia Yee-Wallace, had previously said that the neighborhood association’s arguments, if true, would mean “you could never operate a homeless shelter in the city.”
Interfaith: We’ll ask court to reconsider
Jodi Peterson-Stigers, the executive director of the Interfaith Sanctuary, said her organization was “disappointed” by the ruling and planned to petition the court for a re-hearing.
“We will continue our efforts to ensure the facility is available this fall,” she told the Statesman in a text message.
Maria Weeg, a spokesperson for the city of Boise, said the city was still reviewing the court’s decision as of Wednesday afternoon and was not yet prepared to comment.
Katy Decker, the president of the Veterans Park Neighborhood Association, called the court’s decision a “vindicating” one, and a satisfying conclusion to a protracted legal battle that felt like a “David and Goliath situation.”
“We are a group entirely composed of volunteers, unpaid volunteers, from the neighborhood, going up against the entire system of the city of Boise and a much larger nonprofit corporation,” she told the Statesman by phone. “I wish that it didn’t take that much to follow the rules as written in code. This should have been an automatic decision a long time ago.”
Construction is already underway
It was not immediately clear on Wednesday what effect the ruling would have on the Interfaith Sanctuary, which began construction at the new location in April. The move and renovations aimed to expand Interfaith’s 164-bed capacity by more than 40 beds, the Statesman previously reported. It would also include offices, community rooms and an area for daytime use.
Construction efforts faced challenges amid inflation and rising construction costs, Peterson-Stigers previously told the Statesman.
In 2023, she told the Statesman that remodeling the Salvation Army building would cost $15 million, which she hoped to raise from grants and donations. Construction was estimated to take 15 to 18 months, the Statesman previously reported.
In April, Peterson-Stigers told the Statesman that the neighborhood association’s appeal to the Supreme Court “certainly doesn’t change the story for us.”
“We’re continuing to move forward on building this shelter that is essential for our community,” she said.
This story was originally published January 22, 2025 at 2:55 PM.
