Monique Merrill

(CN) — The Idaho Supreme Court will decide the fate of a homeless shelter already under construction in Boise after a neighborhood association opposing the project advanced its challenge to the city’s approval of a conditional use permit to the high court.

The crux of the issue centers on the City Council’s ability to overturn decisions made by city commissions, or whether the council had the authority to do so in this instance.

In 2021, Interfaith Sanctuary Housing Services submitted an application for a conditional use permit to open a low-barrier emergency shelter in the north end of the city.  Boise’s Planning and Zoning Commission denied the application in early 2022 after holding multiple hearings.

The shelter then appealed the denial to the Boise City Council, which held five public hearings on the conditional use permit before ultimately reversing the zoning commission’s decision and granting the permit with 30 conditions.

The Veterans Park Neighborhood Association, which consists of homeowners and business owners from the neighborhood in the direct vicinity of the shelter, filed a petition for judicial review in Ada County District Court, which upheld the City Council’s decision and dismissed the case with prejudice in 2023.

The neighborhood association then appealed to the state Supreme Court, arguing the City Council violated the Local Land Use Planning Act (LLUPA) and the lower court erred by denying its motion to remand the proceeding to the council.

“What the City Council did was try to condition it away by kicking the can into the future,” Brian Ertz, counsel for the neighborhood association, argued before the Idaho Supreme Court on Friday.

Justice Gregory W. Moeller questioned if the neighborhood association took issue with the City Council setting conditions or the manner in which they set those conditions.

“Are you or are you not challenging their ability to add conditions?” Moeller asked.

Ertz explained that, yes, the City Council is able to add conditions, but argued that it exceeded its authority by overturning the planning and zoning commission’s decision.

“Here, they were arbitrary and capricious with respect to the finding of error, because the standard for review and the standard for finding an error in an administrative appellate authority requires more than just a difference of opinion,” Ertz said. “And here they overturned planning and zoning over nothing more than a difference of opinion.”

Planning and zoning had denied the application, in part, due to a lack of information allowing them to craft additional conditions.

“That is the concern: how much burden belongs on the applicant in the conditional use process, under LLUPA and under city code, and who ought to have the final say as a matter of city law?” James Smith, deputy city attorney, said.

Smith argued that the city council, through the appeal process, had answered the lingering questions that caused the zoning commission to deny the application, like procedures addressing security at the site.

“My struggle is that sounds like a difference of opinion,” Supreme Court Justice Colleen D. Zahn said. “’You should have done this,’ ‘Well we don’t think we have enough information to do that,’ ‘Well we think you do.’ That’s a difference of opinion.”

Under city code, the city council is not permitted to overturn planning and zoning commission decisions based on differences of opinion.

The shelter argued that it had a constitutional right to have its conditional use permit application evaluated consistent with the standards in place when it first applied.

“Had there been objective standards regarding security plans that say we have to have those standards adopted by code, I would have ensured that we provided a compliant security plan,” Geoffrey Wardle, counsel for the shelter, said.

Wardle argued that the neighborhood association demanded more information than the shelter was legally required to provide.

“This court has long held that an adjoining property owner has no vested right in the use and enjoyment of their neighbor’s property,” Wardle said, adding the shelter was not required to “open the books to the president of the neighborhood association” for its application to be approved.

The neighborhood association pushed back, arguing that the zoning commission clearly identified that it was not able to make a factual finding without having a security plan or other information.

“There was no ‘we’re denying your application because you didn’t show us your security plan,’” Ertz said.

The Idaho Supreme Court did not indicate when it would rule.