SCHENECTADY Halfway house regulations prepared BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 or moore@dailygazette.com.
Halfway houses will be tightly regulated and kept out of the heart of residential neighborhoods under draft legislation that will be opened to public discussion next week. The Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the topic at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall. After the commission votes, which it is expected to do that night, the legislation will be considered by the City Council. The council banned all new halfway houses in an emergency meeting in August 2010 after a company applied to house 18 federal prisoners in the city Some residents protested, saying the city was “saturated” with halfway houses already. At the time, council members said they needed the moratorium to give them time to consider a policy for halfway houses. There were no regulations on the books. “We didn’t really have anything. It was kind of, what does it fi t into? That was really the problem,” Zoning Officer Steve Strichman said. But the project was shelved, and there was little movement by the city to create regulations until recently. The draft legislation provides a sweeping definition of halfway houses that will encompass most substance abuse rehabilitation centers in the city, even if they don’t focus on rehabilitating convicted drug addicts. Halfway houses are defi ned as any facility that houses, rehabilitates or trains anyone on parole, probation or early release or anyone found guilty of criminal offenses. Strichman said that would affect Bridge Center, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center on Union Avenue that accepts convicts. New halfway houses will have geographical limitations, but existing facilities won’t have to move, Strichman said. They will have to apply for a special use permit within a year, or the city can shut them down. New facilities can have no more than 15 residents and can only set up in mixed-use commercial zones or business districts, zones C2 and C5. They also can’t operate in any building contiguous to a residentially zoned property, a park, a child care facility or a school, and they can’t operate within 250 feet of another halfway house, according to the legislation. .....................>>>>...................>>>>................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01402&AppName=1
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