Pottstown Hotel Shelter Gets Zoning OK; Conditions Added

Funding, a service provider, and local political support are all in place for a hotel in Pottstown to operate year-round. Only one thing remained: 

Zoning approval. 

As previously reported, a former Days Inn hotel on King Street has become a key “bridge” to provide shelter for the unhoused until Pottstown Beacon of Hope constructs a year-round shelter in the near future at High and Glasgow streets. It’s worth noting that the Pottstown Planning Commission recently approved land development plans for the BOH development. 

Meanwhile, during a three-hour Pottstown Borough Zoning Hearing Board meeting last week, officials hammered out 20 conditions under which the hotel can operate throughout the year. Montgomery County Assistant Solicitor Yvonne Montgomery strongly opposed one of those conditions:  that Montgomery County share personal identification information of the shelter guests with Pottstown Borough. 

“Council wants us to take a trust, but verify approach,” stated Borough Assistant Solicitor Matthew Hovey, in order to ensure that space be prioritized, when not a cold weather emergency, to guests who, for some time in the past two years, resided or were in a homeless encampment in any of the six municipalities of the Pottstown Regional Planning Commission, which are in Montgomery County. They are Pottstown Borough and West Pottsgrove, Upper Pottsgrove, Lower Pottsgrove, New Hanover and Douglass townships.

“It would be questionable on a legal level,” Montgomery stated during her closing argument. 

The Mercury covered the meeting, with reporter Evan Brandt reporting the full list of conditions: 

• A maximum overnight occupancy of 120 adults;

• Adequate lighting and security cameras, which run 24 hours a day, and the footage recorded is kept for a minimum of 30 days;

• One supervisor for every 20 overnight occupants from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and three overnight staff, including a security person older than 21;

• Standards governing intake hours and criminal and sex offender status background checks;

• A daily log of supervisors on duty and guests.

• Guests will be allowed to have pets, so long as they are safe and appropriate;

• Quiet rules and a curfew from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. except for employment or medical care;

• The county is to make “reasonable efforts” to locate another bed in another homeless shelter for anyone expelled for violating the rules.

It remains to be seen whether the identification condition, added the afternoon of the zoning meeting, creates any delays or challenges for the year-round operation of this critical shelter.