BOISE, Idaho — Last year, a local group protested Boise annexing land at the Murgoitio park site near West Victory and South Cole roads.
Now, the Boise Parks Association is aiming to prevent development at any other parks in Boise through their Parks and Open Space Protection Initiative.
"Once we saw this start happening, a bunch of people in a variety of communities came together and said this is wrong. We need the parks. We need to preserve our open space," David King, chairman of Boise Parks Association said. "We're not for freezing development all together. We're for preserving parks and open space - smart development."
The political committee collected 10,365 signatures in support of the initiative. Final petitions were submitted to the Boise City Clerk on Wednesday.
Signatures will be verified by the Ada County Clerk. The Boise Parks Association will need to get 6,823 of their signatures verified.
"Then once it's verified, is qualified to go on the ballot, it will come back over to the city council," King said. "The city council has the option of adopting it as is, and making it into law for the city. If the city does anything other than that, it'll go on the ballot."
If the initiative is adopted by city council - or gets approved by voters next year, the City of Boise would have to get approval from voters before selling, trading, transferring, or gifting more than 5% of a park or designated open space.
"Preventing any use of those parks other than as a park," King said. "So, yes, naturally that would probably be used for housing, warehouses, anything other than as a park."
The City of Boise is also developing its own Parks and Open Space Protections.
During Tuesday's city council meeting, councilmembers unanimously approved deed restriction resolutions for 10 parks. Another 10 parks are up for deed restrictions for the Nov. 29 council meeting.
The City of Boise has 95 parks within city limits, and 14 open space reserves. 42 of the parks already have deed restrictions, and eight of the open spaces are protected. The Boise River Greenbelt is also protected.
"We welcome the city council making the same effort to protect parks," King said. "However, those deed restrictions can be circumvented, and you still need voter approval for that check-and-balance on the city's use. That would not obviate the need for voter approval and deed restrictions are not infallible, there are legal ways to eliminate them. It's an absolute necessity to accomplish this end of allowing voters to have control over the use of parks and open space in the future."
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