HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-01-19 Public Comment - P. Williams - HRDC Warming Center SiteFrom:Philip Williams
To:Sarah Rosenberg
Cc:Agenda
Subject:Concerned about Special Use Permit for 36 individuals in a single family home at 3025 Westridge Drive
Date:Friday, November 01, 2019 9:18:25 PM
Dear Ms. Rosenberg:
As a homeowner and resident at 3001 Secor Avenue in the Figgins R-1-zoned neighborhood, I am puzzled and
concerned by the Director of Community Development's choice of the single-family home at 3025 Westridge Drive
for a homeless warming shelter to house up to a whopping 36 individuals at any given time, and up to 5400
homeless individuals per season. This isn't about lack of compassion--it's about location.
First of all, this house's location is at least one mile from the nearest public bus stops next to the old Sola Café
and by Strand Union on the MSU campus. Yet the guidelines for such "emergency housing" state that a warming
shelter should be "within one-fourth mile of a sheltered public transit stop." If this location were to become a
warming shelter, HRDC residents would be required to walk a mile through the Figgins single-family -home
neighborhood to these distant bus stops, crossing multiple public school crosswalks. Alternatively, city taxpayers
would have to pay the tab for multiple charter shuttle vans to take
The nearest grocery store to the proposed HRDC shelter is the Town and Country on 11th Street, well over a
mile away. Furthermore, there is no public bus service from the proposed shelter to this grocery store. It is difficult
to understand why the Director of Community Development would select such an inconvenient location for
homeless people who seldom have their own transportation. And if they did have motor vehicles, the on-street
parking is designed only for single-family use, not for 36 people to contest for a limited amount of on-street parking.
The proposed HRDC shelter's maximum occupancy of 36 individuals is a shockingly high number for a single-
family home like 3025 Westridge Drive. No house in the Figgins R-1 zoned neighborhood has anything close to this
many residents. Crowding three dozen strangers into a single-family home designed for no more than one-fourth of
that number is a recipe for trouble such as quarrels, noise, litter, and other problems.
Safety concerns are especially alarming for parents with school-age children who walk to school. The proposed
HRDC shelter is only 287 feet from the property line of the Morning Star Elementary School, and is also directly on
a route that numerous primary school children take when walking to and from their public school. Sacajawea Middle
School is not much further away in the other direction (south). Parents who fear allowing their primary school and
middle-school children to walk to school right by an HRDC shelter holding up to 36 homeless residents will drive
them in motor vehicles instead, making congestion and air pollution much worse during drop-off and pick-up times
at the two schools. In other words, this location for a warming center is ecologically unsound at a time when
greenhouse gases are causing climate change.
Crime concerns in a shelter so close to two public schools are especially troubling. At another HRDC shelter
during a 6-month period there were 10 calls for disorderly conduct, 6 assaults, 5 arrest warrants, 6 trespassing
complaints, and one theft.
Figgins single-family home residents have made the largest investment of their lives in their homes in this R-1
designated zone, and fought hard to ensure the R-1 designation remained when it was challenged by a radical
corporate REIT apartment-building proposal in 2014. We did not intend to live next door to an overcrowded facility
that would house up to 36 individuals, many of whom will be smoking on the property most of the evening and
early hours of the morning, with designated smoking breaks at 8pm, 9pm, 10pm, 2am, and any time between 5am
and 7am.
Due to factors such as those outlined above, I urge the City Commission and Mayor to at the very least call for
a public hearing on this proposed warming shelter at 3025 Westridge, and preferably disapprove of this location for
a shelter in favor of a better-chosen location that is within one-fourth mile of a covered public bus stop and not so
close to two public schools and the routes that schoolchildren take when walking to school. A warming center
housing up to 36 people at one time should be located in a higher-density neighborhood that is zoned to include
apartment buildings and shops. 36 people under one roof is essentially a multiple-family compound or apartment
complex--not a single-family home in a R-1 zoned neighborhood.
Sincerely,
Philip Williams