More luxury homes are OK’d for the Foothills near Boise. What’s coming
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- City of Eagle approved a 200-home subdivision with 500 open acres in the Foothills.
- Developers plan luxury homes on up to 2-acre lots, trails, dog park and pickleball courts.
- Subdivision will be built over the next decade, with first homes going up in six years.
More than 700 acres of land in the Eagle Foothills will join the city of Eagle and be prepped for development after a recent city approval.
Called Sagehill, the new development sits west of Idaho 55, next to the master-planned community Avimor, and is anticipated to bring 200 luxury single-family homes to the growing city.
The City Council greenlit the subdivision’s development agreement on Jan. 13.
This marks the next major spurt of development in Eagle’s northern reaches, where the even-larger Avimor and Valnova are taking shape. But this subdivision — with nearly 500 acres of sprawling Foothills open space — will be “almost half as dense” as those two neighbors, according to developers with Sage Investment Partners LLC.
“We have larger lots and (are) very comparable in some ways to Avimor,” said Dave Yorgason, a Boise-area real estate consultant and developer representing Sage Investment, at an Eagle Planning and Zoning meeting in October.
At the development’s public hearing before the City Council on Nov. 25, Yorgason said the homes are planned for lots ranging from one-third of an acre up to 2 acres. He said the high-end homes would have “a similar look” to homes in Avimor, with standards “equal to or greater than” its neighbor.
According to Build Idaho, a real estate company in Meridian, the median listing price for new homes now for sale in Avimor is about $740,000.
Yorgason said homes in Sagehill are expected to be popular with “empty nesters,” parents whose grown-up children have left home. He estimated that the homes would house on average about 2.5 to three people. That could add roughly 500 to 600 residents to the city.
Plans for the subdivision include pickleball courts, a dog park and a series of public trails and pathways, including one for horseback riding, Yorgason said.
A new five-lane road, called Aerie Lane, will cut east-west through the subdivision and eventually connect Idaho 16 to Avimor, he said.
The development process will also include establishing a firewise community at Sagehill, one where residents are involved in fire preparation and mitigation as guided by the National Fire Protection Association. Yorgason noted that he’s previously worked on development in the Boise Foothills, and said Sagehill developers collaborated with retired Boise Fire Captain Jerry McAdams to create a new wildfire safety plan for the subdivision.
Neighbors, city officials support 200-home Foothills development
Multiple neighbors testified in support of the project and its owners, some of whom are Eagle residents, according to Yorgason.
One neighbor, Garrett Smith, said developers have been speaking to him for years about their plans and had moved a proposed home site when he had a concern about impacts to his property.
“Development’s coming one way or another,” Smith said. “I just appreciate that they’re building the right kind of homes and working with us neighbors.”
Sage Investment’s registered agent is Middleton resident Tyler Craig, according to business filing with the Idaho Secretary of State. Craig is also a registered agent for the Middleton development company Chapel Creek Properties LLC, the Idaho Statesman previously reported.
Several members of the City Council voiced appreciation for the development’s design, including Melissa Gindelsperger, who said she liked the trail system and nature-based activities it would offer.
Council Member Craig Kwamme said he wanted to see Sagehill and others proposing more “unique” amenities on residential developments in Eagle.
In this case, Kwamme suggested a soccer or football field in the rapidly developing and somewhat isolated part of northern Eagle. He expressed concern that kids would be a far drive from sports fields closer to downtown, as well as from a planned city sports park roughly eight miles east.
Yorgason noted that there would be an open grassy area just shy of 2 acres, and that the Foothills’ topography did not allow for a site big enough for a full soccer field.
In an email to the Statesman, Eagle’s deputy planning and zoning administrator, Daniel Miller, noted that roughly 336 acres of the development are considered “constrained lands,” or lands with slopes of 25% or greater or important habitat considerations.
Miller also noted that removing constrained lands from the development’s density calculation gives it roughly one unit per 2 acres, in line with the city’s comprehensive plan.
Development to be built over next 10 years
The City Council unanimously approved the annexation and development plan with a time extension allowing it to be built out over roughly 10 years.
Yorgason said it would be about six years before the first phase would be complete, encompassing homes in the development’s northeast corner. After that, developers would move southwest, with four more phases taking roughly one and a half years apiece.
