Lewiston delays votes on regulating transitional housing, moratorium

Aimee Ranger, a theater teacher at Lewiston High School, speaks Tuesday during public comment at the City Council meeting at City Hall. She detailed how the cost of living has been overwhelming for her. She urged the council to support temporary and affordable housing in the area. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

LEWISTON — The City Council postponed votes on wording for guidance regulating transitional housing like homeless shelters and a possible moratorium Tuesday.

Both items were designed to halt a proposed Lewiston Housing project at the Ramada hotel, but that project is already likely dead following a Board of Appeals decision last week.

Prior to delaying both motions, Councilor Lee Clement said he preferred to wait until after an upcoming joint meeting with the Planning Board scheduled for Sept. 12.

Final passage of the proposed wording defining transitional housing would have also required five affirmative votes by the council after the Planning Board recommended against the changes last week.

The board, as well as the city’s Housing Committee, have agreed that transitional housing should not be regulated in the same manner as shelters, and that it could have several unintended consequences at a time when all types of housing are sorely needed.

Last week, a Lewiston Housing Authority proposal to purchase the Ramada and turn it into affordable housing with the help of state funding was dealt a blow after the Board of Appeals denied a variance request for the property. Lewiston Housing officials have said receiving the variance was the only way for the project to move forward due to time constraints on receiving a $3.7 million grant from MaineHousing.

The Board of Appeals said the variance request to lower the minimum dwelling unit size to 282 square feet from the required 300 square feet did not meet the established criteria.

The project, according to Lewiston Housing, was intended to serve local residents who have been priced out of the market, or are facing evictions or in need of stable housing. It was proposed after an original proposal for a shelter downtown on Park Street was not approved.

Lewiston Housing has also argued that its latest proposal does not meet the definition of transitional housing because it does not place a time limit on occupancy. Those opposed to the project have said it would take away a hotel and conference center at the city’s gateway and would negatively impact the surrounding neighborhood.

Chris Kilmurry, director of Lewiston Housing, said last week that one of the reasons they looked at the site is the current need for housing for single parents with children, since local shelters don’t allow children.

During public comment Tuesday, Lewiston teacher Aimee Ranger gave emotional testimony about the need for more affordable housing in the city. She said that as a single mother, her teaching salary from Lewiston High School is still not enough to cover her expenses and she wouldn’t be able to afford her apartment without child support from her daughter’s father.

“I understand that large multifamily housing units shift neighborhoods, but it does not devastate them,” she said. “What devastates a community is having members of the community homeless. In what world are we valuing a hotel and conference center over affordable housing for single parents? As a struggling working single parent I ask that you do everything in your power to create more affordable housing.”

During the discussions to table the votes, Councilor Scott Harriman said he was concerned that the moratorium, if eventually passed, would be retroactive to Tuesday, and thus impact potential projects in the works.

City administration said the date could be changed based on “the will of the council.”

Councilor Bob McCarthy said he and other councilors only saw the potential moratorium as a “stopgap measure” until wording to regulate transitional housing could be ironed out.

“I don’t think the council would maliciously retroact a moratorium just to sabotage something,” he said.

Prior to the meeting, Mayor Carl Sheline issued a statement that said, “The council’s decision to put a moratorium on the agenda for tonight’s meeting is completely misguided. In an attempt to stop just one project they are putting everyone who relies on transitional housing in Lewiston at risk. The very idea that we would attempt to limit any kind of housing in the middle of a statewide housing shortage is extremely shortsighted.”

A City Council resolution on the moratorium states that the “city’s current ordinances governing land use, zoning, site plan review, special exception review and licensing do not adequately or specifically address transitional housing facilities,” and that the “city’s current ordinances are not adequate to prevent serious public harm from proposed development proposals involving transitional housing facilities.”

The vote to table was 6-0, with councilors Linda Scott and Stephanie Gelinas absent.

The city of Portland is renting several rooms at the Ramada Hotel in an effort to transition asylum-seeker families to permanent housing. While Lewiston Housing has a purchase and sale agreement in place, the hotel is still privately owned. Officials have said the goal is to have asylum-seeker families resettled by Nov. 1.