Planning & Development Services

Mission Statement

Strengths

• Building Permit Revenue: The steep slide in building permit levels and revenue seems to have flattened out during the last couple of years. Construction levels should remain at about the same level as FY 2004 for the next two years. Boise City permitted a few major projects, including BODO structures and the St. Alphonsus remodel/addition, during the first six months of FY 2005. There are a few large projects in the conceptual stage, but none have reached the stage of needing zoning entitlements.
• The Planning and Development Services Department has undergone a period of intense scrutiny from the Development Services Advisory Committee during the last year and as a result of this analysis the Department will be readjusting its customer focus to a project management based system where each project submitted for review will be assigned a project manager who is accountable to ensure that timely regulatory and processing decisions are made regarding the project.
• Compehensive Plan - The current Comprehensive Plan anticipated and addresses most of the issues put forth by modern Smart Growth principles and the Blueprint for Good Growth Project. Consequently, few policies will need to be amended to begin to implement the Blueprint project. Most Comp Plan work will involve working with Neighborhoods to prioritize infill areas rather than working on wholesale rewrites of the plan.
• Regional Planning Dialogue - The current Blueprint for Good Growth process has created a regional dialogue on growth and transportation patterns that will place more emphasis on the value of urban development and alternative modes of transportation. This will ultimately benefit Boise in promoting the City as a place to live and work.
   

Weaknesses

• Lack of Economic Development Strategic Plan: The City must develop an economic development strategic plan to enable timely decisions concerning several key City initiatives/projects including the Gateway East Industrial Park, Railroad-track access owned by the City, and a centralized "real estate office" for city-owned property.
• The overall financial picture of the city is forcing possible cuts to positions which bring in fee revenue for the City, are required to process applications in a timely manner and are needed to offset the cost of running the department.
• Lack of Neighborhood Support for Infill - Neighborhoods are not well prepared to deal with the infill demand that is coming. They typically perceive infill as negatively impacting their neighborhood character and quality. Neighborhood opposition to infill adds uncertainty to the development approval process, increases staff workload for each project and creates an unstable political environment as the development review process becomes emotionally based rather than technically based.
• Zoning Ordinance - While Boise's zoning ordinance has had some updates over the years to implement policies in the Comprehensive Plan, overall it is a 20-year-old code that is based on obsolete concepts of planning. It needs to be completely rewritten to address modern concepts of "form-based" zoning and to place more emphasis on mixed use, infill and downtown housing.
   

Opportunities

• Annexation: The City has formed an "annexation team" which will be assessing and revising the the City's annexation plan to reflect current growth and economic development needs. The City will be pursuing a more pro-active approach to annexation to ensure that Boise City and its impact area remain liveable.
• Infill - Due to regional traffic congestion, fuel prices and the vitality of downtown, there appears to be renewed interest by developers and homebuyers in moving back into the urbanized area. Boise can capitalize on this with renewed attention to infill standards and priorities.
• Transportation Corridor Planning - The recent State Street Corridor Study was a landmark transportation planning effort that resulted in an unprecedented plan for transit services and supporting land uses rather than a typical road widening project. Boise has a unique opportunity to follow-up on this corridor study with detailed mixed use transit oriented development planning that accomplishes City goals for economic development, housing creation, neighborhood enhancement and expansion of transit services. What is done for State Street may serve as a model for corridor planning elsewhere in the City and region.
• PDS has the opportunity , through its interaction with the Development Services Advisory Committee, to create partnerships with influential customers who are willing to act as "early warning systems" when a department practice is too cumbersome, expensive or slow for customers. PDS has the opportunity to build customer feedback tools into its new project management system.
  
  

Threats

• Regional Growth Trends - Boise has long advocated compact urban growth, but other jurisidictions have not shared that vision. Ada County in particular has recently begun a process of promoting urban development outside of Areas of Impact. The promotion of development on cheap land outside urban areas will tend to reduce demand for development within cities and may exacerbate long term transportation, public service and natural resource impacts. The Blueprint for Good Growth Process seeks to gain public concensus on long term growth patterns that will facilitate rather than harm transportation planning and resource management.
• Annexation Hurdles and Land Availablility - Boise has experienced great difficulty in annexing and exerting development control over the area in which it has planned for service provision. Consequently, even though the area of impact has significant vacant land available for development, the City has not found an effective path of annexation to that land due to resistence by residents between the current city limits and the land supply.
• School Closures - Recent planning by the Boise School District has revealed a possible need to close or relocate a number of neighborhood schools. Loss of neighborhood schools may futher destabilize older neighborhoods and hasten the slow process of disinvestment that has been identified in those areas.
• Disinvestment - As suggested by the school closure threat, older neighborhoods in Boise ar threatened by an apparent gradual decline in private and public investment as homeowners, families and businesses have migrated to the outlying suburbs. Although there are no older neighborhoods that are currently at a true point of crisis, continued decline could cause some neighborhoods to reach that point in the future. Recent infill trends hold some hope for the beginning of a reversal of decline in those areas.