Springfield city staff provided an overview of proposed changes to how the city handles group homes with criminal offenders and council members gave a clear message — make it tougher.
This process was set in motion more than a year ago, when neighbors of a house on the east side of town started complaining about its inhabitants: alcoholics, drug addicts and sex offenders.
The home, at 1809 E. Crestview St., is just east of Glenstone Avenue, across from Springfield National Cemetery.
An ongoing discussion between city officials and the property’s owner, Farris Robertson, led the city to seek updated ordinances for what kind of group homes would be allowed in certain districts.
That work led to the proposed creation of something categorized as “Group Home, Corrections.”
It would tentatively be defined as a “facility for the housing and rehabilitation of unrelated mentally or physically handicapped persons who may be criminal offenders on probation or parole, or who may be under supervision of State Board of Probation and Parole or a similar agency, and who reside under the supervision of trained staff.”
The ordinance would allow such facilities to exist in industrial districts — beyond prescribed distances from places like schools and parks.
The version of the changes presented to council at a study session Tuesday included a variety of distances, including some less strict than what is legally required of sex offenders.
The changes also allow such homes to exist in other districts, like multifamily residential neighborhoods, under the terms of a conditional use permit — which would require notification to neighbors and approval through the planning and zoning commission.
But council members asked for greater prescribed distances and removal of the conditional use option.
“I would knock out the conditional use permit provisions,” Councilman Craig Hosmer said. “If we’re going to have them in certain areas, lets keep them in certain areas and not have that turmoil that’s created when a facility wants to go into a neighborhood where people live.”
Staffers will now write up an ordinance that requires such homes to be at least a quarter of a mile from residential districts, schools, parks, other group homes, substance abuse treatment facilities, transitional service shelters, soup kitchens, jails and other detention facilities.
Recently appointed councilwoman Phyllis Ferguson agreed with the greater distances and also with eliminating the conditional use permit provision.
“I think that’s even more serious, because of the concentration of kids that could be in an area like that,” she said.
Ferguson also asked City Attorney Dan Wichmer for clarification on whether a sex offender in a drug treatment facility would still be required to be at least 1,000 feet from schools, parks and the like.
Wichmer said that’s basically the topic of a lawsuit between the city and the group home on Crestview.
“They claimed, ‘Yes, these are criminals, but they’re also alcoholics or drug addicts,’” Wichmer said. “We settled it, tentatively, but we’re still trying to work through how we accommodate those things.”
City staffers will now draw up a version of the ordinance based on city council’s suggestions before sending it to a committee and later back to council for a vote. Staffers estimated the issue would come to city council in June or July. by Stephen Hertzog
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