The Kalispell City Council again decided Tuesday to delay a decision on whether to issue an operating permit to a west side residential facility for men recovering from alcohol and drug addiction. After a relatively brief debate over whether to issue a conditional use permit to Freedom House, which was tabled at the council’s Aug. 2 meeting, Councilman Jeff Zauner moved to table the decision for another 30 days. Mayor Tammi Fisher quickly seconded his motion, and it passed 5-3. Council members Randy Kenyon, Jim Atkinson and Kari Gabriel voted against tabling it.
“I felt that if we’re going to issue the permit, then the council needs to do its due diligence in protecting the neighbors with the conditions,” Zauner said in an interview following the meeting. “In this case, I don’t know how you can come up with a vote on something you didn’t have adequate information on.”
In April, Freedom House opened at 1128 3rd Avenue West with the goal of providing up to eight men attempting to recover from drug and alcohol addiction a clean and sober place to get back on their feet. But Freedom House initially did not seek an operating permit from the city, and neighbors investigating the facility raised alarms at council meetings when they learned the vice president of Freedom House’s board of directors was a registered sex offender.
That board member has since left, and at the Aug. 2 meeting, two new board members, President Rod Nash and Treasurer Joi Gratny, sought to answer questions about the facility’s operation, management and funding. But Nash and Gratny recently also left the board, according to Randall Marr, the current board president, who was the original president before Nash. As of Thursday, no names were listed on the section of Freedom House’s website for the board of directors.
The issue before the council was whether to issue a conditional use permit to Freedom House, when failing to do so could violate the Federal Fair Housing Act, which provides that municipalities must provide reasonable accommodation for the disabled – a category that includes alcoholics and drug addicts. That would leave the city open to lawsuits.
While council members expressed concern at the Aug. 2 meeting that eight people living in the house could cause parking and crowding complications, recent changes to the zoning code eliminated restrictions on more than four unrelated people living under one roof in a residential area.
City Attorney Charlie Harball recommended the council approve the permit application, with the conditions that Freedom House remove its sign, which it had already done, and host quarterly meetings for two years to ease relations with neighbors.
Jerri Guiffrida, whose family owns an apartment building near Freedom House and has spoken out against it at previous meetings, said the facility needs to be modified to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), adding that such operations should be located in business areas.
“The transitory nature of residential living facilities is incompatible with these types of living facilities,” she said. “The majority of them are not anything but just high-dollar producing businesses with no accountability.”
Harball replied that the owner of the house would not need to make it comply with ADA requirements – like installing ramps, wider doors and elevators to upper floors – unless a tenant requested it.
Kenyon questioned Marr on the success rate of Freedom House. Marr said two tenants have been asked to leave because they relapsed, one tenant just moved out after remaining sober for four months and is still sober, and two tenants who have been there since April are still sober and living at Freedom House.
Kenyon then made a motion to approve the permit, and Councilman Tim Kluesner offered an amendment to make the quarterly meetings required, rather than “suggested.” But Zauner then successfully motioned to table.
In the interview following the meeting, Zauner said the city would schedule a work session to tackle some of the issues surrounding Freedom House, and draw up some stronger conditions for the permit that could gain the acceptance of neighbor’s concerned over the facility’s oversight – concerns which he did not think would have been assuaged by the conditions contained in the permit that was up for a vote Tuesday.
“To me, logically, it did not make sense,” Zauner added. “Instead of voting to vote, let’s go ahead and have a work session.”
Also at the meeting, the council voted to table an ordinance that would have allowed the city manager to sign contracts in the absence of the mayor. City Manager Jane Howington told the council she was often unclear on how large a check or contract was within her authority to sign off on, noting that in her work for previous cities such guidelines were much more specific.
“To me there is some question over dollar-one, cent-one, whether I have to come back to council or not,” Howington said. “I’ve been walking a tightrope.”
The council voted 5-3 to delay a decision on the matter until more specific legislation could be drawn up. Councilmen Atkinson, Kenyon and Bob Hafferman opposed the motion.
Finally, the council unanimously approved a change to Kalispell’s impact fee policy that would allow developers to pay off the fees in five equal installments over five years, with 5 percent interest. The unpaid balance would be a lien upon the property using city services. Howington explained the amendment as a measure that could encourage development by not demanding developers pay a large impact fee upfront, and could end up resulting in more projects going forward, and thus more money coming into the city.
“It actually makes more sense from a financing standpoint for the city because we actually attach that as a lien,” Howington said. “We have a better ability to track those fees than if we are just requiring it up front, in which case we may not get any of it.”
“This is kind of a way to bridge both sides to be a little bit more flexible,” she added.
Kenyon expressed the concern that the city could end up saddled with partial ownership of a half-finished development that runs out of financing.
“We wouldn’t be in first position,” Howington said. “We wouldn’t want to compete with the private sector in that.”
Council members congratulated Howington on an idea that could send a signal encouraging business development, particularly concerning impact fee policies – which are often criticized by the business community as overly onerous, particularly transportation impact fees.
“What it shows our business community is we are business friendly and we are trying as a city to move forward with them,” Zauner said.