Mark Peters of abettersite.org writes:

Tonight the Chapel Hill Town Council will discuss shelter guidelines. The staff recommends that they “receive the report.” The guidelines have not been to any of the other advisory boards for their input.

One year ago, the Town Council removed a 25-bed limit in the ordinance on shelter size. Many citizens commented that if the size is removed, then it needs to be replaced with a thoughtful ordinance that addresses siting, concentration and capacity issues. Many ordinances from throughout the state and country were provided. Two council members petitioned for the planning board to make this a reality. The planning board appointed a subcommittee that met about six times over the summer with a brief break to consult the council on whether it wanted guidelines or an ordinance. Town council acted as if an ordinance was immutable and opted for guidelines. In fact, ordinances are easily and routinely overridden during the SUP process, merely requiring a “public finding.”

Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said, “If we are going to move forward directing the planning board to do these guidelines, we have to have something that is going to be useful,” and “Look at best practices of other communities, how they do things,” He also stated that facilities like Freedom House should be covered by these guidelines.

After 15+ hours of meetings in the subcommittee and planning board, the result was a mere one and a half pages, which fail to provide guidance to developers and fail to provide protections and assurances for existing nearby uses.

Compare these weak shelter guidelines to the Neighborhood Conservation Districts created by the town, and you will see a stark contrast. NCDs are ordinances, whereas shelter guidelines are merely recommendations that no one is required to follow. NCDs have specificity: lot sizes, house sizes, setbacks, parking, building heights, neighboring building heights, whereas the shelter guidelines are devoid of specificity. NCDs were created based on common sense and preferences of the neighborhoods and town, whereas the shelter committee ignored all citizen input and crime statistics, and selectively chose its “facts” to create guidelines that really don’t guide. This outcome is almost certainly because the committee didn’t want to do anything that might accidentally limit the IFC project or admit to the backroom deal that places all the at-risk services in the county in one-fifth of a square mile.

There were a number of public process issues identified with the proceedings, some of which we have documented with audio at http://abettersite.org/Planning.aspx. For example, the committee didn’t keep detailed minutes, and it didn’t share any of the written or oral public comment with the planning board for its Nov. 2 meeting (when it could have voted without this input). The most egregious error was a quote during the Nov. 2 meeting by a planning board member that “The New York City police department was unable to provide any statistics between homeless centers and rising crime,” which turned out (after a public records request for the link) to say “The NY city police department was unable to provide any statistics between homeless centers and rising crime BEFORE THE STORY DEADLINE” (caps added for emphasis).

To see more details about these issues as well as annotated videos of the planning board meetings and the citizen presentation at the November 16th PB meeting, see http://abettersite.org/PlanningBoard.aspxv.

The town council needs to:
• Create guidelines that encourage Fair Share and discourage clustering
• Create an ordinance with fixed proximity or density limits for at-risk uses (provide “specificity” like dozens of other communities have done)
• Create an ordinance with protections for schools, parks, neighborhoods
• Require public siting of shelters that receive public funding (IFC’s proposal has $1.8M in public assistance)
• Require public siting of shelters that are to have a lease with the town
Here are the most significant issues with the current shelter guidelines:

* They still do nothing to resolve the problems we documented in 2010.
* They fail to acknowledge that clustering at-risk services is undesirable. If developers use the proposed formula, then all at-risk facilities will continue to be encouraged in the Homestead Park area of town.
* They fail to provide remedies for shutting down facilities that result in negative impacts (no “teeth”).
* They allow 25 shelters in one square mile without even notifying the town council that other at-risk facilities exist in the area.
* They leave sex offenders out in the cold.
* They fail to require public criteria and siting process for facilities that receive public funding.
* They fail to define shelters properly in the land use management ordinance (loopholes allow pocket shelters as secondary use).
* They continue to permit new facilities and expansion of facilities in the “Homestead Road At-Risk Campus.”
– Mark Peters

As I looked over the Planning Board Shelter Committee’s summary of recommended guidelines for where to put prospective shelters for the homeless, I had a rare moment of insight: Why not move the shelter for the homeless to University Mall instead of the library? Keep the library where it is and put the shelter in the space where Dillard’s is now.

A special-use permit application is under review for the proposed Inter-Faith Council Community House “Men Shelter” (as the town website describes it) at 1315 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. A Town Council public hearing is tentatively scheduled for March 21.

So I looked over the Shelter Committee’s recommendations, and it was eerie how many points the mall site would fit just dandy.

One recommendation was to identify social service uses within a quarter of a mile of a proposed site and then consider net benefits or net burdens. Well, there won’t be any “social service uses” affected by putting the shelter in the mall, unless you consider Chick-fil-A a social service use (I’m sure many mall employees do). No clustering of women’s shelters and county services centers. Just the men’s shelter in the spacious area that has housed Dillard’s for so long.

Net benefits include critical needs, unmet needs, increased property values (uh, putting a shelter for the homeless might INCREASE someone’s property value?). A net benefit of putting the shelter in the Dillard’s space would be that the homeless’ constant challenge of staying warm in the winter would be met by allowing them to stay in the heated mall instead of shivering in some downtown alleyway.

No negative benefits I can see – the only noise pollution would be when they hit up the odd shopper with a polite solicitation for public funding. The only safety issue might be that some oblivious shopper caught up in the splendor of the shopping options at the mall might trip over a slumbering body stretched out on a walkway (adds another meaning to “shop ‘til you drop”).

As for location considerations, the town solons are encouraged to look at desirables versus undesirables, with the ideal location having more desirables.

Among the desirables are proximity to public transportation (the mall has a bus stop right outside its doors so the homeless can ride downtown when they get bored with the mall); proximity to professional services, such as a doctor’s office, barber shops, and legal offices (nice to have them available right across the street from the mall); proximity to grocery stores (the Harris Teeter is right in back); proximity to job development centers (it’s just a short hike to the Chamber of Commerce offices where I’m sure Aaron Nelson has many suggestions for where to find a job); proximity to providers of services often utilized by the homeless (medical clinics, food banks, library . . . ah, the library!).

Such a move would get the facility away from sensitive neighborhoods. Think of how much certain business owners would celebrate moving the shelter out of downtown and away from gullible students. A single facility could take care of shopping and homeless needs in one place.

Yes, I think the University Mall Men Shelter would work quite well.

–Don Evans

With last night’s Town Council meeting cancelled due to adverse weather, my mind had time to wander and ponder other options for the location of the Community House, the proposed shelter for homeless men that the town would like to site on Homestead Road, where it would be clustered with other social service facilities. The town wants so badly to build the new shelter on Homestead Road that it has taken evasive action to avoid hearing possible objections from the citizenry, scheduling hearings and planning meetings for times when the public is least likely to show up or not giving the public adequate advance notice of meetings. For instance, supporters of building the shelter on Homestead Road were notified on Nov. 8 that the planning board would hold the first public review of the shelter’s SUP application on Jan. 4, giving them eight weeks to prepare. But the general public had only one week’s notice, and that announcement was made during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, when many people were away for the holidays. Only a few citizens who want to explore other options for the shelter’s location were able to attend.

Because of the fear of inclement weather, the town rescheduled the hearing on the shelter for Jan. 19, the same night that the Parks & Recreation Committee will review the expedited SUP application.

To expedite moving the shelter from Rosemary Street so that it won’t interfere with Ram Development’s quest to find buyers for the leasehold condos now rising on Lot 5, we have two suggestions for town-owned properties that could be repurposed into a homeless shelter.

What we see for 523 E. Franklin St. is a spot for the Community House. Plans call for only 25 beds plus office and meeting space, which would fit nicely in the landmark building. The town has already approved a budget for the space to be renovated. And wouldn’t we all feel a sense of closure in housing the homeless in the former home of the now homeless Chapel Hill Museum?

The mayor, some council members and the town manager are gung-ho to relocate the library to University Mall, leaving the current library building in Pritchard Park off Estes Drive available for the Community House. The office and meeting space is already in place on the lower level. Install some showers on the main level, and you’ve got a turnkey operation with plenty of space to adequately handle the white-flag nights. And the Library Drive building is far enough back from the street that any homeless men loitering outside would not be visible to passersby, thus preserving the image of the town we like to think we are.
– Nancy Oates