CC_Minutes_2023_0306 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Regular City Council Meeting Monday,March 6, 2023 Page 13 Chair Roe noted the City had an opportunity to hear from folks so he thought that the next steps would be offline conversations, depending on what the Board determines this evening. The Board just needs to provide some direc- tion that has been asked for from staff in terms of how to deal with enforce- ment of the action of the Board this evening. The Board is attempting to do that and did ask for some insight from the church, which he appreciated. As to some of the things he asked about, in terms of the church's own internal processes and figuring things out where the church wants to be and what the church wants to be doing as a congregation, he asked if there was any more information in that regard as to where the church is in their process and how that might fit into what is being discussed. Mr. Michael Stetzler explained this is a complex issue. Prince of Peace has been looking at this issue for a while, as the City knows. The church has been looking at affordable housing for families with children, which is pointed out by the school district and others that this is a need. When this first came up, their concern was that the people who had been working on the problem of homelessness understood and supported what the church was doing with the tiny homes. But those people had a caveat too that they did not want to commit to it at the exclusion of looking at other things the church could do for homeless folks. They would like to consider how this kind of model of smaller units could be used to house families with children. The planning process, and they work as much as they can on a congregational consensus model, so it takes time to build that sort of thing. They have a lot of other things going on too within their church. Their next congregational meeting is scheduled for June 30th or thereabouts and anything that they de- cide needs congregational approval would have to come before them at that meeting. It will take a lot of work to prepare that in advance. Their timeline, realistically, for making a decision on where they want to apply their re- sources is toward the fall, before it gets cold again, to either meet the call to try to do something permanently with these tiny homes or to find some other solution that also provides a Community First model for Valerie. The church would respectfully ask, if the City wants to stay this or engage in a planning process that goes beyond a certain timeframe, to put it either on a fixed date sometime in the fall or better yet, conditionally upon achieving certain mile- stones in the planning process together with the City. Board member Groff did not think the City could wait until the fall and that the issue needed to be addressed. He would like to see a sixty day time pe- riod and work with the church and congregation on what could be done dur- ing that time, get a report back from City staff, and then finalize their deci- sion at that time with that information. The Board reviewed RV regulations and Code enforcement in the City with staff, noting that the City does not prohibit RV parking in the Walmart lot