City of Boise residents ask for walkable urbanism in comprehensive plan

First update since 1997

Jay Blazek Crossley, Nov 22, 11.

The City of Boise has been conducting a multi-year revision of their comprehensive plan to ensure that the plan is based upon the vision of the citizens, resulting in calls for walkable urbanism and livability, according to the Idaho Statesman:

If approved at a public hearing Nov. 15, the expansive, 300-page Blueprint Boise will guide the city’s growth for the next 20 years.

“For years, the city has engaged neighbors and businesses and asked them what the city should look like,” said state Sen. Elliot Werk, a member of the Borah Neighborhood Association on the Boise Bench.

Livability issues were the hot topics in Werk’s neighborhood — sidewalks, bike paths, getting Borah High students to their school on Cassia without turning local streets into race tracks. Other priorities: making the Bench neighborhood, which sometimes feels overlooked, into a magnet area, said Werk.

“How will the city deliver amenities? How do we make the Bench attractive so that people from Meridian, Kuna, Nampa who are sick of rows of strip malls with the same chain restaurants, will want to move here?”

Blueprint Boise’s action plan includes a commitment to urban infill development, stable neighborhoods, expanded non-motorized transportation and support of “vibrant mixed-use activity centers” like Bown Crossing and 36th Street.

“The next step is to make sure city codes are compatible with that plan,” said Werk.

(Image Credit: trekkyandy / flickr, creative commons license)