Planning Board cites need for stricter shelter guidelines

The Chapel Hill Planning Board expressed concerns regarding the specificity of guidelines for shelter development at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Planning board member George Cianciolo said the guidelines presented by the board’s shelter subcommittee should ensure that residents’ fears and concerns are recognized. But they are not specific enough, especially in regards to the term “proximity,” he said.

“We need to try to put some more teeth into these guidelines,” he said. “We’re responsible now for taking care of our citizens, so I think we need to try to make the guidelines as specific as possible.”

The guidelines were originally established by the shelter subcommittee in May after Town Council members presented a petition. The guidelines include details like proximity to day care facilities, schools and transportation access.

The subcommittee consists of three planning board members — Michael Collins, Del Snow and John Ager — who have met for six months to discuss guidelines that would apply to the proposed move of the Inter-Faith Council’s Community House Men’s Shelter to Homestead Road as well as other shelters in Chapel Hill.

Snow said she would take a second look at the guidelines to be more specific.

“Being specific does make life much easier,” she said. “We could somehow refine some of these considerations with a little more specificity, but their essence covers it all as far as I can tell.”

Planning board member James Stroud said he would like to see more numbers in terms of what type of people are involved in a homeless shelter.

“I would like to look at a solution,” Stroud said. “We need to end homelessness by coming up with a good, decent plan. We need to see where we are and how we can as a town be effective at ending homelessness.”

The new location for the men’s shelter was first presented in a concept plan in Sept. 2009. The Town Council has since received a special use permit for the site at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Homestead Road that is still under review.

“In 12 years on town advisory boards, I think this is one of the most difficult issues I’ve ever had to sit in on,” Cianciolo said.

“What makes it so difficult is that the citizens of Chapel Hill are forced to have to balance our desire and sense of responsibility to protect those less fortunate with our desire to protect our neighborhoods.”

Some Chapel Hill residents conveyed their concerns with the guidelines to the board and subcommittee, particularly emphasizing the lack of public input involved with the proposed site of the men’s shelter.

Tim Coyne Smith, a Chapel Hill resident, said resident concerns about over-concentration of social services facilities in the area, the proposed location and the development of site selection criteria have not been considered by planning board members.

“I’m quite disheartened by the preliminary guidelines,” Coyne Smith said. “I just want to make sure that if something’s not going to be considered, I would like to know why.”

Planning board members will continue the discussion of the guidelines at their Nov. 16 meeting.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu