Developer proposed 2,000 houses. ACHD member warned against them. What Kuna just decided
The Kuna City Council has rejected a master-planned community that would have brought nearly 2,000 houses and 370 apartments to the easternmost edge of the Boise suburb.
Council members cited worries that city resources would be strained by growth too soon along its outer boundary.
The council on Tuesday split over the decision about the Spring Rock subdivision. Members Briana Buban-Vonder Haar and Warren Christensen voted in favor of the development, while Richard Cardoza and Greg McPherson voted against it. Mayor Joe Stear cast the tiebreaking vote to deny it.
“I’m afraid for us to expand residential out that much more would be doing a disservice to the citizens of Kuna,” Stear said. He suggested that the developers — Dave Yorgason, Christopher Findlay and Pat Duynslager — come back in a few years once the council has had a “chance to clean up some of our issues in the rest of the city.”
Those “issues” include roads, police response times and fire response times, all of which would have been burdened by the proposed development, officials said.
But Buban-Vonder Haar said that by approving the master-planned community, which would have been built over 20 years, the city could have anticipated where it should deploy those resources in the future..
“Having that level of planning for all of the different things that are going to go in — I feel like it even better allows us to plan for things,” she said.
Beyond houses, the Spring Rock subdivision included 83,000 square feet of commercial and office space, a 35-acre park, mini-self storage and a site for a future school.
The developers pointed out that the Ada County Highway District would have required them to pay for millions of dollars in roadway and intersection improvements in the area, including the intersections of Cloverdale Road with Hubbard and Columbia roads. These “exactions” are often required of large developments that would flood roads with cars.
Smaller developments of 50 to 100 houses are usually not required to make such road improvements upfront, and instead pay impact fees so that the highway district can make those improvements associated with growth later. (Spring Rock also would have paid impact fees, in addition to the exactions).
“We’ve agreed to it, because it’s the right thing for the community,” Yorgason said. “That’s why we partner with these agencies, so that we can be a solution, and not kick the can further down the road.”
But ACHD Commissioner Kent Goldthorpe openly warned Kuna in December 2019 that if the council approved Spring Rock, the district would not be able to widen roads or enlarge intersections to the north and south of the project that new residents inevitably would use.
ACHD has done little to plan for road improvements on Kuna’s eastern edge, because until recently, the city had planned for the area to remain farmland.
But in 2019, the City Council approved a new comprehensive plan, a document guiding development for the next 20 years. That plan, which was created with input from Yorgason and his development team, envisioned residential development as far east as South Cole Road.
Beyond roads, Stear said that despite the developer’s offer to donate land for a school, taxpayers ultimately would be left with the bill for the building itself, as well as the cost of operations. The same went for a new fire station, which would be needed to lower response times, he said.
In 2018, amid much more public outcry, the council voted to annex nearly 990 acres into city limits for the Falcon Crest subdivision, just east of Cloverdale Road and north of Kuna Road. The developers of that project, M3 Cos., plan to build 2,300 single-family homes and apartments there over the next 10 to 15 years.
Spring Rock would have gone in right next to Falcon Crest.
“I get the concern of annexing far away from hubs,” Buban-Vonder Haar said. “But it seems like Falcon Crest will already be a large service area. Having some additional development right there might be preferred to another random spot.”
As cities have come to better understand the costs of growing out rather than filling in, many are trying to change their development patterns. Boise has encouraged infill development for years. In Meridian, Mayor Robert Simison has said the city will channel growth to its northwest and southeast, where the city can save money by developing parcels along existing roads, sewer lines and parks.
Likewise, Ada County Commissioner Diana Lachiondo has stressed to local governments that by continuing to grow outward, they are increasing the demand for new first-responder stations, which the county doesn’t have the money to fund.
Kuna council member Cardoza’s concerns were similar.
“I just think we’re expanding our infrastructure a little too far,” he said.
This story was originally published August 4, 2020 at 8:39 PM.
