Feb. 18—TRAVERSE CITY — Certain permitting processes need to happen for Safe Harbor to become a year-round shelter.

Members from the City Commission and the Planning Commission are scheduled to meet again to talk about the permitting process of turning the seasonal homeless shelter into a year-round operation, and what changing the permitting would look like.

The joint study session is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 21 at 6 p.m. in the Governmental Center.

Commissioners met last Monday night during a special study session that discussed the Memorandum of Understanding they joined with the board of Safe Harbor and the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness.

Grand Traverse County has yet to join the process, with their commissioners voting to hold a study session of their own before taking any further steps.

That MOU was created just to begin conversations amongst government and nonprofit stakeholders. Actually making that change would require at the very least a Special Land Use Permit change.

That’s because the permit defines Safe Harbor as a seasonal emergency overnight shelter and gives specific dates when it’s allowed to be open and operate.

This year, the shelter was authorized to open on Oct. 15 and is scheduled to close for the season on April 15.

Traverse City’s Planning Director, Shawn Winter, made clear in his executive summary that “the submission of a SLUP application does not signal a predetermined outcome.”

As of Friday afternoon, both Winter and Traverse City Mayor Amy Shamroe confirmed that Safe Harbor had not submitted a new SLUP application.

According to the ordinance, Winter said they’ll need to receive that application at least 14 days ahead of the scheduled meeting. Hypothetically, he said that means Safe Harbor could submit an application on Tuesday so it would be ready for the March 5 regular meeting.

“It seemed to make sense to put both bodies together in case there were any questions either of them had of each other,” Winter said.

Shamroe said the point of this agenda item is to go through the hypotheticals of what would happen if that new application comes in, and what the government processes and meetings look like afterwards.

“It’s obviously been brought up because of the discussion around Safe Harbor, but again, there’s no application,” she said. “This is really to help people understand.”

It’s been awhile since a SLUP was brought up to both bodies, Shamroe said, and there are a lot of new members who have never been through the process before. That’s the main reason for this agenda item, to act as a quick refresher for people serving on both commissions in case this continues to move forward, she said.

Despite the presentation slides from Monday’s meeting being included in the agenda packet, Winter said they have no plans to go through the presentation again.

“We can as staff discuss with both bodies what that special land use permit process looks like, as required by the ordinance in the event that we get an application,” he said.

A SLUP runs with the land, meaning that it never expires, according to Winter. As a result, Safe Harbor would only need to update or change their SLUP if they changed their dates in their operational plan.

Winter said the dates in the permit and the dates in the organization’s plan need to match.

Traverse City residents spent more than an hour Monday sharing differing opinions about what they believe should happen.

The consensus about what the future holds for the one of two local emergency homeless shelters in town remains cloudy.

One of the MOU members, Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness, is part of a larger system of resources that’s in place for local homeless people, director Ashley Halladay-Schmandt said.

“It’s not just about Safe Harbor. It’s not just about shelter. It’s about taking people from homelessness to housing,” she said. “Folks want solutions, and so the more we can say this is a part of a homeless response system. This isn’t the end-all, be-all. We are still working on housing and that is the ultimate goal here.”