Plan for 640 rentals on farmland heads to Boise City Council, down from 892 homes approved in 2022

Welltower wants to turn nearly 44 acres of farmland into 640 rental homes and apartments, and the Boise City Council is set to take up the plan at an Oct. 20 hearing.

What's before the council is a preliminary plat, the map that divides a piece of land into lots and lays out its streets. This one would split the site into 12 buildable lots for apartment and multi-family buildings, plus two common lots, and would be built in phases.

The land isn't starting from scratch. In 2022 the city rezoned it from open land to multi-family residential under a development agreement and approved a planned development of 892 homes on 157 buildable lots. The new plan drops that to 640 homes and shifts the whole site to multi-family buildings.

On Sept. 14, the Planning and Zoning Commission approved that change to the planned development, which the city handles as a conditional use permit, a permission tied to a specific project and its conditions. The commission also recommended that the council approve the new plat.

What's changing on the site

City planners wrote that the revision lowers density and changes the site and parking layout, and that the number of homes has not gone up since the original approval. Single-family homes sit to the north, south and east, with commercial uses to the northwest and southwest. The property is also in the city's hillside overlay.

The street network is different, too. The 2022 plan used public streets throughout; the new one mixes public streets with private access drives. The application form, though, answers no when asked whether private streets are proposed. The filing doesn't explain the difference.

The commission attached conditions that neighbors are likely to notice:

• A pathway first. A 12-foot multi-use path along the southern edge must be built in the first phase, with a public access easement recorded over it.
• Alexandra Drive stays closed to cars. The connection to West Alexandra Drive in the southeast part of the site will be a permanent dead end, open only to people on foot and emergency vehicles.
• Hollowfield Avenue. The developer must finish the street along the western edge once the development next door builds its half, or pay a deposit to the Ada County Highway District to cover the work.
• A parking cap. Total parking can't exceed 125% of the city's minimum.
• Work hours. Construction is limited to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends.

How it compares

No other Boise subdivision filing in the past three years that lists a home count comes close. Vista Point's 640 homes rank first among 36 such filings; the typical one lists six.

The 640 homes would be the most of any Boise subdivision filed in the past three years. The typical filing lists six.

The site is the fourth largest of 90 subdivision filings in that period, where the typical parcel is under an acre. Only three are bigger, including a 135-acre subdivision¹ that was approved and one of about 106 acres² that has been submitted.

At about 15 homes an acre, the plan is more than twice as dense as the typical Boise subdivision that reports density, ranking fourth of 23. The denser ones are much smaller projects, such as a condo project on Hopes Well Way³ and the Jeffrie Brownstones Subdivision⁴.

More apartments are in the pipeline nearby. About a third of a mile away, a rezone for a 140-unit multifamily development on 1.8 acres⁵ is still under review. About a mile away, a 72-unit apartment complex proposed in place of an approved hotel plan⁶ has a hearing Nov. 2.

Subdivision requests in Boise have rarely failed outright. Of 89 other filings in the past three years, 28 were approved, none were denied, three were withdrawn and 58 are still pending. The typical approval took 171 days from filing to decision.

What isn't known yet

The plan reached its first commission hearing Aug. 10, 90 days after it was filed, but city staff asked to push the decision to Sept. 14 because they needed more materials. Revised plans came in Aug. 13. Several questions remain open in the filing:

• How many homes. The city's project description and the application say about 630 homes; the staff reports and the commission's letter say 640. The filing doesn't explain the gap.
• What the buildings look like. The apartments still need separate design review approval, and no building designs are among the plat documents.
• Phasing. The plan will be built in phases, but the documents on file don't say how many or when.
• The full narrative. The one-page letter of intent from Brighton, which represents the applicant, points readers to the separate modification application for details, which isn't among the plat documents.
• The owner's name. The application lists the owner as EPC Boise Victory Road LLC, while the commission's letter copies Epic Boise Victory Rd, LLC. The records don't say whether these are the same company.

What happens next

The City Council hears the preliminary plat Oct. 20. One piece of public correspondence is on file, a short letter supporting the staff recommendation ahead of the Sept. 14 hearing.

If the council approves, each construction phase would need its own final plat, and work in one phase must be finished or bonded before the next can be filed. The developer also needs an approved roadway design from the highway district before submitting a final plat. The commission's permit for the revised development expires if it isn't acted on within two years.