Church, volunteers going forward despite some costly surprises from city

By Matt Neznanski

Gazette-Times reporter

Activists and volunteers are moving forward with plans to create a drop-in homeless center in downtown Corvallis.

The center, located between Second and Third Streets on Washington Avenue, is open around noon for a few hours. But in a few months, organizers hope it will offer more.

“Our vision for it is to have showers and some laundry facilities there, which is something the city has talked about for years,” said Aleita Hass-Holcombe, a member of the Corvallis Homeless Shelter Coalition.

The center hit a rough road recently when it began talking with city officials about building renovations and was told that the city would require extra toilets and sinks, which boosted the center’s fees beyond what had been budgeted.

In the city, new developments pay systems development charges, known as SDCs, to offset the increased load from hooking in to city sewers or adding more traffic on city streets.

For the drop-in center, the charges amount to a $7,700 increase in the center’s costs, an amount that is straining the volunteer- and charity-run operation.

Mike Fegles manages plan review in the city building division. He said the site’s location, formerly a retail space, doesn’t have the facilities to support a community gathering place and it’s his job to ensure that state building codes are met.

“We have to protect the people who will be using the place,” Fegles said. “They have the right to clean buildings and facilities like everyone else.”

Building codes figure a building’s occupancy based on square footage. The drop-in center’s 1,700 square feet, by those calculations, should support up to 200 people and provide multiple facilities.

Paul Boling, associate pastor of First Christian Church of Corvallis and chairman of the drop-in center’s advisory board, appealed to the City Council on Monday, asking that the fees be waived.

“This has greatly increased our fees and it’s going to be very difficult for us to raise that money,” he said.

But the council wasn’t eager to simply write off charges because of concerns that doing so would open a can of worms for future development by nonprofits.

“When someone requests to not pay SDC charges, where it comes from is everyone else in the city,” said Ward 2 Councilor Patricia Daniels. “What it means is additional public money is spent without a granting process.”

City building staff and homeless advocates will meet next week to find common ground. Fegles said the center might be able to show that other homeless shelters in the city haven’t approached anywhere near 200 people in any given time.

That could create some wiggle room within building codes, but the center almost certainly will need to provide separate restrooms for men and women.

“Right now, we don’t have a real proposal, we just have an idea,” Fegles said. “Until we have something in writing, there’s no green light.”