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City policy regulates building near landslide

BOISE -- Who is responsible for homes sliding and shifting in the Boise foothills?

Everyone appears to be pointing fingers now, even though the apparent risks have been known for decades.

"Had they looked simply at aerial photos, they would have seen going back that there was a massive landslide exactly at this location," said homeowner Eric Rossman.

Homeowners in the Terra Nativa subdivision say someone should be held accountable for the toll that slow moving landslide is taking on their houses.

"Our property has moved over a foot in about a month to a month and a half," said Rossman.

On Thursday, an attorney for four homeowners on Alto Via Court said he is busy preparing a lawsuit against the Terra Nativa's developer and engineers, saying that historical, aerial photos of the land under the subdivision clearly show that this area has been prone to landslides for decades.

The Ada County Highway District presented similar photos at a public meeting Wednesday -- their way of refuting claims by the developer that the slide was triggered by a new ACHD drainage system.

The City of Boise said it only became aware of these photos after they were brought forward by ACHD this week. Boise said at no point during the permitting process were concerns raised over possible landslides.

“Our experts don't have any data, don't have any indication that the conclusion that their expert came to is eminent,” said Boise city spokesman Mike Journee.

Boise city does have an ordinance in place for development in the foothills. That policy states: the location of development will be regulated to avoid environmentally sensitive areas such as water bodies, floodways, landslides and fault zones.

"We can provide guidelines as to how that can happen, but at the end of the day they are building in an area where we have identified that there could be challenges,” said Journee.

The city said that the burden lies with the developer to prove that it is safe and viable to build on any piece of land. That submission is then reviewed by a third party before the city signs off.

“We had no indication at the time that there was a landslide risk in the area, obviously if we had known that if any of those reports had come back indicating that, then it would've been a different story,” said Journee.

Homeowners have also filed tort claims against the city and ACHD. They said it is inconceivable that the potential for landslides was overlooked by the many people that had to approve the construction of these homes.

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