BOISE, Idaho — "Y-e-s" - three letters echoed throughout Boise City Council chambers Thursday night. After sharing personal stories about what Boise means to them, council members unanimously approved the city's zoning code rewrite.
After three days of passionate testimony, council decided on the fabric of Boise's future. The city's zoning code will see its first major changes since 1966.
The revised zoning code was passed with unanimous approval, with all six councilmembers voicing their support — after some changes.
About 18 amendments were made to the proposed zoning code. In her motion for approval, Council President Holli Woodings outlined them:
- Implement the new zoning code with an effective date of December 1, 2023.
- Modify the conditional use permit findings to include the word "and."
- Modify the bike parking to increase the long-term bike parking to be calculated to require one bicycle parking space for the first bedroom, and 0.5 parking spaces for each additional bedroom.
- Include R2 and R3 within the neighborhood transition standards.
- Include all proposed changes identified with the April 13 PDS Memo.
- Include all proposed changes identified with the June 1 PDS Memo.
- Allow Class III trees in an eight-feet planter strip along streets.
- Allow Class II trees under overhead powerlines when sufficient height exists.
- Provide noticing for Type 2 applications to adjacent property owners at the approval stage.
- Increase neighborhood association testimony time to 10 minutes for the neighborhood associations that are located within the notification radius.
- Decouple the sustainability and affordability requirements within the affordability incentives.
- Create a use allowing electric substations in all zones, with specific landscaping and screening requirements in all zones.
- Include language that requires conditions of approval that require all improvements to be completed one year after first occupancy permit is issued.
- Allow all sizes of childcare/daycare facilities allowed in the mixed-use zones by right.
- Allow for a parking reduction to be obtained through conditional use permit.
- Amend on-site and off-site signs to have an eight second dwell time.
- Amend the accessory dwelling unit standards to not require any parking, remove the requirement for owner-occupancy, remove the affordability requirement.
- Reduce the length of deed restriction for affordability incentives to 20 years.
The zoning code outlines how future buildings and developments are planned and approved. City officials call the rewrite a modern zoning code, and a plan that focuses on density - meaning more homes with smaller footprints. Supporters say the new zoning code will help stop the city's sprawl by building up and will help provide more affordable housing options for Boiseans.
"The point of the zoning ordinance is to build the city that the community wants, and it's the rules around which we can ensure that will be the case," Tim Keane, Boise's planning and development services director said. "So, the shape of the city, the growth of the city - part of the way we accomplish that is through the zoning ordinance. So, this has been a multi-year process by the residents of the city to create rules that are reflective of the city that we want to be in Boise. So that's why it's a big decision, because there's little things in here, there's big things in here that people came up with, that will allow us to direct the city's growth in a way that makes the city better and better."
The city has been working on the new zoning code since 2019.
On Monday, council also heard from nearly 40 neighborhood associations.
Before they voted Thursday evening, council did a Q&A with several city officials about topics that were brought up in testimony. They then discussed amendments and changes, some of which were influenced by public testimony.
"This week has been quite a community event in the sense that so many people participated, and that's what makes this satisfying, is that so many residents of the city came," Keane said. "You heard it tonight, we incorporated aspects of public testimony that came up last night got incorporated into the final version of this code. It's just exciting to see something that is such a community effort that comes through city council, it's as good as it gets when it comes to a zoning ordinance, and the people of Boise were so instrumental in what it says. So, that's exciting, and there's a commitment to making sure this works. You know, it's not as though we adopt this, and 50 years later we come back to it. We have to monitor this constantly. It's an intentional decision to say, 'We made a big step forward, but we've got to keep working.'"
The new zoning code is effective December 1, 2023. More information about the zoning code, the full code's text, and the executive summary can be viewed here.
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