Boise State unveils West Central Mountains resilience plan, urges regional coordination

Boise State University's Resilience Institute laid out a three-year regional strategy on April 16, urging Valley County and nearby communities to coordinate land-use, infrastructure and stewardship to protect ecosystems while managing future growth.

"By 2028, our West Central Mountain communities are actively collaborating in responsible stewardship and data-driven well-managed development to secure a future where people, businesses, economies, livelihoods, and natural ecosystems are healthy, safe, and thriving together," Dr. Britney Brand, director of the Resilience Institute, told the McCall City Council. The plan was developed from a year-long assessment and a series of multi-stakeholder workshops.

The plan focuses on four goals: ensuring infrastructure capacity meets growth; conserving ecosystem health; strengthening interjurisdictional collaboration; and increasing public engagement. Brand highlighted three anchor strategies that cut across those goals: a shared environmental and infrastructure decision-support tool, aligning growth with infrastructure and environmental capacity, and creating consistent development review and enforcement.

Brand told the council the region faces rapid growth: "The region's population is projected to double in the next 20 to 30 years," a projection she said underpins the urgency of aligning plans and investments.

The institute has applied for grant funding to build the proposed decision-support dashboard and expects a funding decision in June; Brand said the team will pursue other funding pathways if that grant is not awarded. The dashboard would combine hazard, infrastructure, social vulnerability and environmental data to allow scenario planning (for example, comparing projected impacts under different development patterns).

Brand cited a local example of implementation: a small community that used institute data to support FEMA and other grant applications and secured about $1.5 million for mitigation work. "We're not going anywhere. We're going to help you get this implemented," she said, noting Boise State often deploys student teams to advance technical project work.

Brand also announced an upcoming public comment period and survey to gather resident feedback, and urged McCall officials to identify where the city's climate action and comprehensive plans overlap with the regional work so those tools can be integrated.

The Resilience Institute plans outreach with the West Central Mountains Economic Development Council and said implementation will involve rotating participation from local leaders, agency staff and volunteer goal-team members. Brand offered to remain after the meeting to answer additional questions.

What happens next: public comment and the pending grant decision in June will shape immediate implementation steps, and council members signaled interest in reviewing the plan materials and considering formal engagement with the regional effort.