HERMISTON — The Hermiston City Council added a new wrinkle to plans for a new homeless shelter in Hermiston on Monday, Sept. 14, after voting unanimously for an ordinance that would not allow the shelter’s proposed location.

In April, a newly formed nonprofit known as Stepping Stones approached the city about providing some financial backing for a year-round shelter they hoped to build that would feature 6-foot by 10-foot Conestoga huts with no running water or electricity, and a community building with showers and restrooms. The shelter would be available in the evenings to homeless residents who would earn time there through work, volunteering or education designed to help them move out of homelessness.

The council at the time balked at agreeing to financial backing without a more firm business plan from the organization, but directed the city’s planning commission to work on crafting an ordinance that would at least make it possible for temporary emergency shelters to exist in the city’s light industrial zone.

The ordinance passed Sept. 14 would allow such shelters as a conditional use in light industrial zones. But a rule in the ordinance states that such shelters must be at least 1,000 feet from schools and parks.

Stepping Stones had been planning to place the shelter on a 0.8-acre lot behind the Agape House food bank on Harper Road — less than 1,000 feet from Theater Sports Park.

The organization has not released a statement yet about what their next steps will be, but City Manager Byron Smith said its board had expressed to him that they didn’t want their project to trip up the city’s efforts to create rules for shelters.

“They’re trying to separate the issue and often it has been clouded,” Smith said. “This whole discussion tonight is about amending the zoning code to allow (emergency shelter projects) to happen, and I think it really got twisted up in their proposal to go on a certain location, and so I think they felt like they wanted to try and let the community discuss this, and then they will come forward with a proposal if they can find a site that’s workable.”

During the Sept. 14 council meeting, Allan Lambert was the only resident to testify. He said he wasn’t against helping people, but he supported the changes the planning commission had made from its first draft of the ordinance, particularly the 1,000-foot requirement.

Lambert and his wife had previously submitted written testimony to the city stating they own commercial properties near the Agape House and felt that placing the Stepping Stones project there would draw a large number of transient people to the neighborhood and create a “major problem” for businesses there that already sometimes deal with theft or trespassing.

“I think there’s other ways it can be done,” he said during the meeting.

Minutes from the planning commission’s July 8 and Aug. 12 public hearings showed similar concerns from some other residents who worried that allowing a homeless shelter too close to a park would draw additional drug use, litter and other crime to the park. Other residents, however, testified of the need for better services for the homeless in Hermiston and said they supported an ordinance that would allow for such a shelter within city limits.

The ordinance ultimately recommended to the council by the planning commission included a variety of conditions that would need to be met before an organization could obtain a conditional use permit for a “temporary emergency shelter.”

A few of those included requiring camps to have a community building with restrooms and showers; requiring the site to be covered by a sight-obscuring fence at least 6-feet high; requiring applicants for a permit to submit a business plan and security plan; limiting residency for any occupant to 18 months; and requiring shelters to be co-located on a site with another existing industrial use already in place.

“This has changed quite a bit from when you looked at it during a work session in June,” City Planner Clint Spencer said.

He noted the ordinance merely allows for emergency shelters to exist in industrial zones, and is not tied to approval of Stepping Stones or any other specific projects.

Mayor David Drotzmann said when looking at a map of where the ordinance would allow a shelter, there were “not a lot of options” left — mostly some lots along Elm Avenue or South Highway 395, if organizers are able to find an existing industrial user willing to allow them to co-locate on their property.

“I understand (the planning commission’s) feedback and their long deliberation that they’ve taken along with all the public input; I just hope that we haven’t handcuffed them so much that it’s made unreasonable,” Drotzmann said.

The city of Hermiston will hold a special election for the Ward IV city council seat on March 9, 2021, after City Councilor Doug Smith resigned from the seat.

The council accepted Smith’s resignation during their Sept. 14 meeting after he submitted a letter on Sept. 4 stating he was resigning effective Sept. 5 for “personal reasons.”

Because Smith still has more than two years left in his four-year term, the city’s charter states the city must hold a special election to fill his seat. The council can choose whether to appoint someone to fill the seat in the interim, or leave it vacant until after the election.

The council has four at-large positions and four ward positions, and the at-large positions are up for election on Nov. 3. City Manager Byron Smith noted that two of the five candidates running for those four seats — current city councilor David McCarthy and newcomer Nancy Peterson — live in Ward IV and would be eligible to run for that seat in March.

City Councilor Roy Barron stated he thought it made the most sense to wait to appoint an interim councilor until after the Nov. 3 election so that if McCarthy or Peterson lost the election and wanted to apply, they could. Other councilors agreed, and the council voted to appoint an interim councilor after Nov. 3 to fill the seat until the special election in March.