City Council Monday adopted an ordinance that tightens and updates regulations on halfway/recovery houses, rooming and boarding houses and institutionalized housing.

Council did it despite objections from three individuals in attendance who said the ordinance discriminates against certain classes of people, potentially in violation of federal and state laws, based on precedent cases, with a fourth individual speaking out after the meeting.

The ordinance is not punitive, but rather is intended to ensure the safety of individuals living in the kind of housing covered under the ordinance, while also helping to ensure the viability of neighborhoods where such housing is located, according to City Manager Christopher McGuire and Councilman Dave Ellis.

The provision that the critics found most objectionable prohibits the establishment of any new such facilities within 1,500 feet of an existing one.

That will make it difficult to site new facilities, said Lisa Hann, executive director of Family Services Inc., whose organization operates a family shelter, a teen shelter and five group homes for people with intellectual disabilities.

Existing facilities are grandfathered, but will need to come into compliance with building codes and fire regulations, McGuire said.

They would need to come into full compliance with the ordinance if there is a change of occupancy, McGuire said.

The ordinance is not intended to keep facilities out, but rather to ensure that if one is established it’s done correctly, McGuire said.

Critics of the ordinance cited the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act in connection with precedent cases in which courts upheld objections against municipalities that have enacted similar restrictions on the concentration of group homes.

“Across Pennsylvania and the country, municipalities that adopted similar ordinances have faced federal investigations, consent decrees and lawsuits, often after advocates warned them,” wrote Marianne Sinisi, an activist on behalf of people who have had substance use disorder problems, whose son died of an overdose, in a sheet she provided after the meeting. “These cases consistently show that local governments cannot regulate recovery housing out of residential neighborhoods under the guise of health or safety.”

The ordinance sets a licensing requirement for covered facilities and inspections and licensing requirements that are part of state law, while also incorporating codes, fire safety and zoning requirements that already are part of city regulations.

It requires that facilities provide a minimum square footage per resident and it requires owners — many from out of the area — to provide local contacts who are readily accessible to city officials, McGuire said.

A couple properties proposed for occupancy recently to the Codes Department were far out of compliance, McGuire said.

Among problems the ordinance seeks to solve is that of facility owners interested primarily in the money they can make, and who evict residents when subsidies — either due based on those individual residents or due based on the facility — dry up, said Councilman Dave Butterbaugh.

Such evictions exacerbate the city’s homelessness problem, he said.

Helping to alleviate that problem is one of the thrusts of the new ordinance, he said.

Last summer, Mayor Matt Pacifico and Councilman Dave Ellis encountered a homeless man on Green Avenue who had been in a “three-quarters house” and then lost his job, which led to him being evicted, Pacifico said.

Everyone deserves a safe place to live, Butterbaugh said.

Council doesn’t “want another tent city” in Altoona, Butterbaugh added, referring to tents that were set up for a time more than a year ago in an area not far from the mainline tracks.

The new distance requirement between facilities seeks to end “discrimination against taxpaying residents,” according to Butterbaugh.

“We represent them (too),” he said. “The way I see it, I want to help Altoonans,” he added, citing cases of operators who bring in residents from other areas to take advantage of subsidy opportunities.

Facilities being too close together can create parking problems, McGuire said.

To remedy that, the ordinance requires facilities to provide off-street parking.

It also requires that operators require “occupants to be considerate of neighbors, including refraining from engaging in excessively loud, profane, or obnoxious behavior that would unduly interfere with a neighbor’s use and enjoyment of their dwelling.”

Overcrowding has been a potential issue with some facilities, McGuire said, citing a proposal calling for 13 residents in a single house.

“I know that their concerns are legitimate in that they don’t want unlicensed facilities throughout the city,” Hann said. “That’s bound to cause problems.”

But people in recovery shouldn’t be “treated as a problem to be managed rather than neighbors to be housed,” Sinisi wrote.

“Displacing recovery housing increases overdose risk, emergency room use and community harm,” she stated.

While those in attendance Monday who spoke out were all opposed to the ordinance, there have been more than 100 calls recently to the city’s administration complaining about such facilities, according to McGuire.

There are emotional arguments on both sides, McGuire said.

After the critics of the ordinance spoke, but before council voted to adopt, Ellis asked whether it would behoove council to wait until next month to vote, to ensure there were no legal problems.

The author of the ordinance was codes solicitor Dan Stants, who wasn’t present, however, and city solicitor Mike Wagner, who was, said he believed Stants would have gotten it right.

“We have to trust our solicitor,” Ellis said later.

It would have been “prudent” to wait, Hann said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.