City amends code to clarify rooming house zoning

The City of Shelton amended its code to allow rooming houses in most zoning districts.

The Shelton City Council on March 7 voted unanimously for the amendment. The amended code allows rooming houses as a permitted use or conditionally permitted use in almost all zoning districts in the city, except commercial and industrial zones.

A report to the council by Jae Hill, the city’s director of economic development, states that

“rooming houses have been a traditional form of rental housing in cities and towns throughout history. The City’s code defines them as ‘a building wherein furnished rooms, without cooking facilities, are rented for compensation to three or more nontransient persons not included in the family unit of the owner or tenant of the premises.’ It’s unclear why the city’s code contains a definition of ‘roominghouses,’ but the term is not applied to any of the existing zoning districts as a permitted or conditional use.”

Filling in for Hill at the March 7 meeting, Senior City Planner Jason Dose reiterated that the city’s code doesn’t specify where those houses are allowed.

“This action simply proposes to solidify that in the code,” he said.

According to the city report, the rooming house rules do not apply to “group homes” or residential care facilities, which are regulated separately.

Terri Drexler, chair of the board of directors for The Youth Connection, was the only person to speak about the proposal at the public hearing. The Shelton-based nonprofit wants to offer 12 units on the second floor of its building at 235 S. Second St. in downtown Shelton. The group is working to purchase the building.

“This is a vital, vital, vital change in your ordinance for our transitional housing project,” Drexler said. “Jason Dose had written a letter saying, confirming that our transitional housing use was an allowed use in the zoning of the downtown district, and then he took a look once we got our preliminary design done and he goes, ‘Oh, this isn’t what we thought it was.’ So this is vital to continue on our project, and I really appreciate Mr. Hill’s work on this and his creativity in finding that you had this type of use in your code already and to allow this in the district of downtown is absolutely essential … I also thank you for not having a special use permit requirement for the downtown zone as well. Gosh darn it, I don’t want to do any more of that sort of thing!”

None of the council members commented on the change at the March 7 meeting.