The October 8 edition of the Owyhee Avalanche, the weekly newspaper in Homedale, led its news report with, “City council faces another mixed-use idea for Homedale.”
The thought that Homedale is facing a mixed-use proposal at all, much less yet another one, qualifies as a new idea. Not so many years ago Homedale, like nearby Marsing and much of the rest of high-rural and low-population Owyhee County, seemed more at risk of drying up than of facing stresses from growth.
The Avalanche article – take it as another indicator that this newspaper seems to be doing better than many of its counterparts – noted that a couple “who own a 122-acre parcel on the northwest corner of Pioneer Road and U.S. Highway 95 , are seeking annexation of a parcel with a proposed zoning of commercial and residential.” The area currently is agricultural; the idea is similar to another proposed development put before the city just a month ago.
These do not sound like tiny developments, and the parade of developments in the area does not seem near an end.
Drive around Homedale today, as I did recently for the first time in a few years, and you’ll see that in contrast to times past, such expansion is of a piece. You’ll see new subdivisions and new commercial development around town. Homedale is growing. And a few miles to the east, so is Marsing.
Bear in mind that what would be a flyspeck of growth in Meridian makes a huge difference in these communities south of the Snake River. Homedale’s population in 2020 was about 2,900 (itself a significant expansion from a decade before) and Marsing was about 1,200. Those numbers likely will be a lot larger in 2030.
Two related activities come to mind in looking at what’s happening in Owyhee County.
One is the recent construction of high-end estates on or near the south side of the Snake River, many in places which have been irrigated farmland. The numbers are not enormous but they have drawn attention and have a commercial and cultural effect.
The second development is the ferocious growth in the area south of Nampa and Caldwell, reaching south toward the Snake River. (You can see evidence of what the state expects to happen in the large road projects along thoroughfares like Highway 55.) There’s still plenty of farm land between those developments and the Snake River, but after a critical mass is achieved, development can leapfrog into new areas, and the growing number of jobs in Caldwell, Nampa and Meridian suggest that’s likely to happen.
What might this look like? Anyone who remembers Kuna from 30 or 40 years ago (when its population was about 1,900) compared to now (about 30,000) can get a sense of what this leapfrog development pattern can become if the forces in back of it are strong enough.
Much of the attention paid to rapid-fire development in the region around Boise has focused on Eagle and northern Meridian. (The development of Avimor north of Eagle, with its nascent small business district, and a large expected new development across the highway from it, deserve more attention than they’ve gotten.)
But the region to the south should be borne in mind too.
Owyhee County long has been rightly regarded as a dusty outpost of the old and barely-settled west, with a semi-active semi-ghost town (Silver City) and a courthouse in a community that isn’t an incorporated city. Much of the county in the vast mountain areas to the south really are remote and are likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
But the strip along the Snake River is apt to become something different in the next decade or two. Parts of it may look a lot different from what long-time residents are accustomed to.
Long-timers at Kuna probably could tell us something about that.
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