BOISE, Idaho —
After an extended final day of hearings, the Boise City Council voted (4-2) to approve Interfaith Sanctuary’s appeal to overturn the Boise Planning and Zoning Commission's denial of a conditional use permit application to use the former Salvation Army building on West State Street as a shelter.
Testimony began Monday and continued Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. All hearings were live-streamed on KTVB.COM and the KTVB YouTube channel.
Before voting, the city council altered some of the previously developed conditions, including limiting the shelter's maximum capacity to 205 beds and scheduling a review of the conditions after a six-month review.
The council members' final vote was as follows:
Elaine Clegg- Y
Holli Woodings- Y
Patrick Bageant- N
Jimmy Hallyburton- Y
Luci Willits- N
Lisa Sanchez- Y
Boise Mayor McLean did not vote on the hearing but ended the meeting with one final remark.
“Interfaith sanctuary is an important partner that provides emergency shelter," Mayor McLean said. "I want to recognize that this does not meet our city’s emergency shelter need and so it is really on all of us to advance public-private partnerships and determine how we can best ensure that folks are housed on an emergency basis in this community, emergency shelters are a big part of that. We talk and hear all too often, and with a bit too much vitriol, about the homeless and camps, but at the end of the day, it’s about people, and doing what I know our city can do that other cities haven’t.”
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