Burlington’s city council has instructed city staff members to keep tweaking a proposal that would allow new homeless shelters to set up shop within two of the city’s zoning districts.
Due to concerns about its particulars, the council has reached a consensus to hold off on this staff-level plan to add “transitional housing,” or homeless shelters, to the list of permitted uses in Burlington’s unified development ordinance.
The creation of this new zoning category was one of several proposed changes to this ordinance that came to the council on Monday with a unanimous endorsement from Burlington’s planning and zoning commission.
The council has agreed to hold a public hearing on the rest of these recommendations – which include one change that would enable churches and other institutions to house the homeless during emergencies. For the time being, however, its members have resolved to hold off on the proposal for transitional housing, which concerns facilities whose primary function would be to accommodate the homeless.
From time immemorial, Burlington has boasted a homeless shelter that the nonprofit Allied Churches operates along Fisher Street. In recent years, the adequacy of this facility has been called into question as city officials have grappled with illegal encampments within Burlington’s downtown business district.
Consultant says new plan addresses ‘transitional housing’
Chad Meadows, a planning consultant in the city’s employ, insisted that the city’s planning staff has tried to address these concerns through the proposed regulatory changes that he presented to the council on Monday. Meadows added that the “star” of these potential amendments is the proposed zoning category for “transitional housing.”
“This is for multiple, unrelated people to have a place to live for as long as this transitional housing use type permits them to stay,” he went on to explain during a city council work session that afternoon. “This is housing for folks who are ‘unhoused.’ We used to call them ‘homeless’ we now call them ‘un-housed.’”
Meadows stressed that, in consultation with the city’s planning staff, he has proposed several restrictions on this new category of housing. Under these rules, transitional residences would be limited to the city’s general business and office and institutional zones. They would also require a special use permit from Burlington’s board of adjustment.
Meadows went on to suggest a series of development standards for transitional housing within the designated zones. These proposed rules would require homeless shelters to be handicapped accessible, meet the state’s building code, offer round-the-clock staff supervision, and provide at least 100 square feet of living space for each occupant. The consultant also suggested a spacing restriction that would prevent a new homeless shelter from popping up within a half mile of a school, daycare, group home, or an existing homeless shelter.
Councilman questions whether new rules are too restrictive
These proposed regulations raised some concerns for councilman Ian Baltutis, who was one of three new council members to be sworn into office after last fall’s general election. Baltutis, who once served as Bur-lington’s mayor, argued that the cumulative effect of all the suggested restrictions may be to forestall the development of any new homeless shelters in Burlington.
“If we’re restricting it to O&I and general business, we’re already sectioning off a whole part of the city where they cannot be built,” he said. “We could very well end up with a situation where there are only five parcels in the entire city where you could construct these [facilities]. . . We’re going to force people into less-than-ideal locations in the city while they’re trying to get on their feet.”
Baltutis was particularly critical of the proposed spacing requirements, which he said may hamper the development of homeless shelters within easy reach of bus routes and other public services.
Meadows, for his part, observed that the city already places similar restrictions on group homes and rehab centers. Mayor pro tem Bob Ward, who had once been Burlington’s city attorney, insisted that more lenient limits on homeless shelters could expose the city to claims that it has denied “equal protection” to other facilities. Meanwhile, councilman Jeff Smythe, who formerly served as the city’s chief of police, recalled the trouble that Burlington had with the proliferation of group homes and boarding houses prior to the introduction of spacing requirements.
“We ended up with a high ratio [of group homes in Burington] due to lackluster prohibitions,” he added. “I’m inclined to say that some space requirements are required to properly manage the inflow of these opportunities [for new homeless shelters] so they don’t overrun our city.”
Baltutis asserted that the proposed mandate for a special use permit would already have a chilling effect on the spread of new homeless shelters across Burlington. He went on to suggest that there should, at the very least, be provisions in place to allow the board of adjustment to relax the spacing requirements when they prove overly onerous. Ward was a bit chary about the potential legal liability of such an approach.
“Our standards have to have some relation to what you’re trying to regulate,” he argued.
Baltutis’ concerns seemed to gain some traction with councilmem-ber Dejuana Bigelow and mayor Beth Kennett, although they also echoed the misgivings that Ward and Smythe had about nixing the spacing requirements.
In the end, the council instructed Meadows and the city’s planning staff to draw up some alternatives to the proposed provisions that would address the concerns Baltutis had raised.
The council wasn’t nearly as hesitant about the planning commis-sion’s other recommended revisions to the city’s unified development ordinance.
These proposed changes include some modifications to the provisions for “temporary” housing that would enable churches and nonprofit groups to shelter the homeless in an emergency. Under state law, facilities that meet certain standards are allowed to open their doors to the homeless when the temperature outside falls below 35 degrees or exceeds 95 degrees. The proposed amendments to Bur-lington’s unified development ordinance would allow these “white flag shelters” to operate as long as they meet the state building code and have full-time staff supervision. They would not be subject, however, to the same spacing requirements that have been proposed for “transitional” housing.
Other proposed changes that were pitched to the council on Monday include new language to clarify that manufacturing is subject to the city’s noise ordinance and that easement holder must sign off on any permanent structure, such as a fence, which a property owner puts up inside an easement. Meadows also recommended some new design standards to prevent a “sea of parking” in front of new buildings and, instead, encourage off-street parking in the rear.
With the exception of the proposed zoning category for transitional housing, all of the proposed regulatory changes will come up for a public hearing on January 20.
