Your Daily Guide

Asbestos Exposure at Beleaguered Apartments

The Cambridge Square and Dorchester Garden apartments in the East End continue to have problems — now, it’s asbestos exposure. Two maintenance workers realized they were exposing apartments to asbestos when they uncovered material with a logo for a company that has been sued for thousands of exposures. The property management company, Commercial Northwest, says that the owner, Karl Klokke, was in charge of the construction, and that they were just tasked with communicating with residents. [Idaho Press]

• Tenants sued Commercial Northwest earlier this year for a mass eviction due to heating issues. [City Cast Boise]

The Cups Are Full

The Boise River system, comprising Arrowrock, Lucky Peak, and Anderson Ranch reservoirs, are at 96% of capacity. The Payette system is at 94%. On the eastern side of the state, the Upper Snake River system is at a healthy 90% of capacity, which is well over where it stood this time last year. [Idaho Reports]

Steelheads End Season With Loss

The Idaho Steelheads fell short against the Florida Everblades (thanks to the reader who corrected me on their name, I fell for the pun), losing four straight games as the Everblades took their second Kelly Cup championship in a row. The Steelheads briefly led in the final game, 3-2, before the Everblades ended the season with two back-to-back goals. [Idaho Statesman]

The Ada County Highway District has released an online and mobile version of their bike map, displaying routes across Ada County. Routes are color-coded for difficulty: Bblue means “bikeway with high comfort for all,” green is comfortable for adults, and orange indicates “increased stress,” which are typically along busier roadways.

On the right side, one of the tabs allows you to create a route, giving you a distance and time like on other apps. As of yet, it doesn’t include expected biking times.

This map has a lot of other information, though. It has bike repair shops, schools, parks, libraries, relevant signages, and Valley Regional Transit routes, and can be updated with traffic or accident information as needed.

Essentially, this does a lot of things that Apple or Google Maps does, except it gives more specific route information and resources for commuting and traveling all in one place.

We’re in the final stretch! The talk of the town this week is the city council’s public hearings regarding the zoning code rewrite. This weekend, several dozen protestors against the code — mostly affiliated with Reject Boise Upzone — gathered at city hall, and are calling for their supporters to speak up at hearings this week.

Reject Boise Upzone and other opponents of the zoning code warn that similar zoning changes in other cities has resulted in increased housing costs for everyone.

“This is a clever marketing tactic that unfortunately has convinced some Boise residents to believe that we need to have a new zoning code to create ‘missing middle’ housing and create more affordable housing options for people,” wrote one rally organizer on NextDoor.

Meanwhile, proponents of the zoning code rewrite, like Neighbors for Boise, say that a modern zoning code will reflect changes in Boise that require housing for people who can’t afford or don’t want single-family homes, but are having to compete for apartments.

Neighbors for Boise points out that several kinds of housing like cottage court apartments, fourplexes, and neighborhood multiplexes, are either illegal or conditionally allowed under the current zoning code, which dates back to the 1960s. If those became easier to build, they’d provide more housing options.

So opponents say the new code will make housing cost more, and supporters say the entire purpose of the new code is to create more affordable housing. It gets much more complicated than that (the entire final draft is over 600 pages, after all), and opponents say that the vote should at least be delayed until after the November election.

However, the vote date is set for Thursday. Today and tomorrow, public testimony will be held in the Maryanne Jordan Council Chambers at City Hall.

Read the executive summary here, and for even more zoning code intel, listen to our recent City Cast Boise episode on it.

Barbarian Nerd Night 🐉 | Wednesday | 4 - 10 p.m.

Call your nerdiest friends and grab your favorite board game to head to Barbarian downtown for 10% off your tab. [free entry, 21+, Downtown Boise]

Goathead Picking Kick-Off Party 🐐 | Wednesday | 6 - 8 p.m.

The annual Goathead Fest is aiming to pick 15,000 pounds of goatheads before the festival, and this event is kicking it off at Liberty Park. [free, all ages, Morris Hill]

Dummy 🎸 | Thursday | 8 p.m.

Dummy, The Cruks, and Nuppeppo are playing at the Shrine Basement. [$13+, all ages, Downtown Boise]