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Homeowners plan to sue over shifting land

A group of homeowners who have been affected by a landslide in the Boise foothills say they plan to sue. Two homeowners have already filed tort claims against the City of Boise and the Ada County Highway District on this matter.

BOISE -- A group of homeowners who have been affected by a landslide in the Boise foothills say they plan to sue. Two homeowners have already filed tort claims against the City of Boise and the Ada County Highway District on this matter.

Soon they say they'll file lawsuits against the developer and engineers of the Terra Nativa subdivision.

"We've received no indication that anybody is going to do anything so far," Eric Rossman said about efforts to stop the slide.

The Boise attorney lives at the end of Alto Via Court and he says the shifting ground has moved his home substantially in recent weeks.

"We've had substantial movement, over a foot, in a pretty short period of time," he said.

He showed KTVB cracks in the stucco of his home and in the concrete in the backyard.

"We're very worried, very scared," Rossman said.

Meanwhile, a battle is brewing over who is to blame for the situation and what should be done to stop the slide.

The Ada County Highway District said that North Alto Via Court in the subdivision will remain closed for the near future. ACHD says that this area is a safety risk to the public, as the ground there continues to shift nearly half an inch every day.

“ACHD’s infrastructure is in trouble, the earth is moving,” said Steve Price, general council for ACHD.

At a meeting Wednesday afternoon, Price displayed aerial photos of the land under the subdivision taken in the 1990s. Photos, he said, show that the Alto Via section of this subdivision was built on unstable land.

“This has been a historic, ancient landslide,” said Price.

Rossman is frustrated by the photos, too, and believes more research should have been done before development started on Alto Via Court back in 2008.

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

Price told ACHD commissioners that developers should've expected that increased groundwater could cause the hillside to slide.

“Another photo from 1998 shows a drainage swell,” displayed Price.

An attorney for developers of Terra Nativa argued that in the seven years since these homes were built, the ground has remained stable. And that it wasn't until late January that the developer was made aware of any shifting in the land.

“Something happened in or above and we believe above this subdivision to initiate this earth movement,” said Don Farley, the attorney for Terra Nativa LLP.

Farley said new drainage pipes installed above the subdivision last fall by ACHD for the rise in groundwater to the area. ACHD, meanwhile, said that there is no data to support that claim.

“Despite the developer's finger pointing, the storm water on Table Rock Road is not the source of water that is impacting the slide,” said Price.

No plans were made to mitigate the slide by either ACHD or the developer. And homeowners say they're left feeling helpless.

"An inch and a half a week is not a slow moving landslide,” said Chad Nicholson, an attorney representing four Alto Via homeowners.

Those homeowners are asking ACHD and Boise city officials to temporarily open Alto Via Court, to allow them to move out of their homes. Nicholson said that as long as the road remains closed, moving trucks will not go to their houses.

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