Hanging in the balance

On a recent morning, Leslie Johnson, co-founder of the Chico Housing Action Team, watched as bulldozers flattened the earth and piled up the leafy remains of bushes on an expanse of land on Notre Dame Boulevard, just south of Morrow Lane.

CHAT was breaking ground on its latest project—a tiny home community for seniors dubbed Simplicity Village—amid a lawsuit that aims to bar its development.

Earlier this month, Frank Solinsky, president of neighboring business Payless Building Supply, filed a lawsuit against the city of Chico and Brendan Vieg, its director of planning and housing, for approving the project. CHAT is listed as an interested party, along with the land’s owners, Ted and Justine Ball.

In a nutshell, the dispute comes down to land use: The city maintains that Simplicity Village is allowed temporarily and without a permit, per the shelter crisis declaration made last year. Conversely, Solinsky argues that the project is permanent, and therefore is not allowed without a use permit and environmental review; that the city is bypassing laws in order to approve a favored project.

CHAT members and Solinsky have met several times to hash things out, but have yet to see eye-to-eye. Johnson and her husband/fellow CHAT co-founder, Bob Trausch, told the CN&R the lawsuit could cost the nonprofit time and money, delaying the vital services it plans to provide to homeless seniors. CHAT has raised $350,000 for the project so far, enough to get it off the ground, the pair said.

“We’d love to see him drop the lawsuit and give us a chance to show that we can be good neighbors and that we can be super responsible and responsive to his needs and concerns,” Johnson said. “It would be very unfortunate to have to divert some of the funds that people have donated to help make this happen toward legal defense.”

In the lawsuit, Solinsky maintains that Simplicity Village should be defined as a permanent emergency shelter, which means the project cannot be developed at that site in a light manufacturing zone without a use permit. Robert L. Berry, who is representing Solinsky as co-counsel on the case with land-use attorney Walter P. McNeill, of Redding, told the CN&R they believe that the project is “a permanent use being approved under a temporary ordinance.” Berry cited CHAT’s $700,000 investment that permanently alters the land (by putting in roads and utilities, for example), arguing that the project could remain for decades, making it “impossible” to categorize as temporary.

Vieg found in his official planning director interpretation, or OPDI, that Simplicity Village’s use is temporary because it is intended to operate during the city’s declared shelter crisis, which is set to expire on June 30, 2021. This allowed it to be classified as an emergency facility, which addresses “emergency public health and safety needs.” State law allows for communities that have declared shelter crises to waive certain processes and permit requirements in order to speedily get people into housing.

“The proposed use is further acceptable due to its temporary nature, the operational characteristics proposed by the applicant, and given the urgency of the need to provide emergency public health and safety needs to the community’s significant number of homeless, which is documented by the State’s and City’s Shelter Crisis Declaration, and has more recently been exacerbated by a significant influx of Camp Fire survivors,” Vieg wrote in the OPDI.

Going through a use-permit process could add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the project’s price tag, Chico principal planner Bruce Ambo told the CN&R, using accessory dwelling unit fees as an example.

Johnson said the lease is for two years with options to extend up to 24. Based on the region’s tremendous need for housing, CHAT wanted to secure the land longer in the event of an extension of the emergency shelter crisis declaration.

Solinsky told the CN&R he respects CHAT and the work it has done to house homeless people. It has provided permanent housing to 130 people across 35 homes via its master lease Housing Now program, for example. But he is “absolutely” concerned the project could have impacts similar to those of the homeless encampment that sprung up next door a few years ago. At the time, Payless lost $30,000 worth of lumber that Solinsky alleges was stolen from the camp’s inhabitants.

“It can be managed to the best of their ability, and I’m sure CHAT would try to do that. But then what happens down the road? Once you start something like this, it’s forever …”

Berry added that the lawsuit is not about the merits of Simplicity Village or CHAT’s qualifications. “It’s about whether or not the interests of the people that are impacted by this on all sides of this development have been adequately provided for. And we argue that they haven’t been.”

Those concerns could have been addressed during a use-permit and environmental-review process, Berry added.

CHAT is confident in the city’s ruling, but the organization still has made changes to its plans to address some of Solinsky’s concerns, including writing into tenant contracts that they will not complain about the lumber yard’s early morning operations. The property will be fenced and well-managed, Johnson and Trausch told the CN&R. They’ll also have vans to transport people, and parking to prevent overflow onto nearby streets.

“We’re really trying to think of everything that could help improve the situation,” Johnson said. She added that CHAT realizes a tiny home community “isn’t the ideal.”

“As a community, we are doing what we can, and the most and the best we can to try to offer one solution,” she said.

“And it’s a temporary solution … but it’s much better than having someone living on the street or dying on the street,” Trausch added.