City seeks funds to operate resource center through end of year
The city has taken possession of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, closing the $750,000 purchase the Hot Springs Board of Directors authorized in July on Sept. 12.
“We actually got the keys today,” City Manager Bill Burrough told the board at its Sept. 19 business meeting.
The city plans to put a community resource center there, making it the hub for groups serving homeless and indigent people and eventually converting the 109 Hobson Ave. campus into an emergency and overnight shelter. But Burrough has said it could take a year or longer before the property can operate as a shelter.
He told the board it will soon be considering resolutions authorizing bids and contracts for elevator repairs, fire suppression, heating and cooling and other improvements. Pandemic relief funds the city received by way of its U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development entitlement city status will be used. Burrough said the money has to be spent by a certain date or returned to the federal government.
Part of the $1.17 million balance from the city’s restricted American Rescue Plan Act allocation was used to purchase the property.
Burrough has told the board the city won’t be ready to solicit proposals for a program operator until 2025. In the interim, he and city staff will be visiting similar programs offered in other areas of the state.
“We’re not ready for that (request for proposal) process,” he told the board. “We still have a lot of things we have to do in the building. I don’t want to rush into that just to have a RFP out there. I want to make sure we’re doing the due diligence we need to make sure we have the right RFP out there.”
The consent agenda the board will consider Tuesday night includes a request for a $60,000 increase to the general fund-supported public works budget to pay utilities, insurance and other expenses at that property through the end of the year.
The city said the church will be responsible for utilities at the sanctuary and annex. The purchase agreement the board adopted gives the church
use of the sanctuary on Wednesday nights and Sundays for a year after the closing date. The city has the immediate use of Friendship Hall, the two-story, 8,000-square-foot recreational/fellowship area west of the annex.
The medium/high density residential zoning district where the church is located permits few nonresidential uses by right, but many are allowed on a conditional basis. The city said the conditional use permit the church received to build Friendship Hall in 1998 made petitioning the Planning Commission for further dispensation unnecessary. It said services the resource center will provide are similar to those the Planning Commission approved the church to provide at the building.
“Uses proposed by the city are so similar as to not require additional land use approvals,” City Attorney Brian Albright said in a July 20 letter to Burrough and the city’s planning and development department.
The resolution authorizing the purchase the board adopted July 5 made the sale contingent on obtaining Planning Commission approvals for a community resource center. The city said planning staff found the 1998 conditional use authorization after the purchase resolution had been adopted.
Planning approvals the city initially thought were needed to close the sale would have been subject to pubic comment, giving those in the area and others a chance to voice opposition or support for the resource center.
Several residents who live near the church spoke in opposition at the board’s July 5 business meeting. Opposition was also voiced from those who didn’t live in the neighborhood.