A Monroe-based company wants to re-establish an adult foster care facility in an existing single-family home on South 19th Street, according to a site design review application submitted to the city on March 14.
A notice of the application issued by the city states that the owners plan to operate the adult foster care home to accommodate 10 to 12 clients.
S4S Inc. owns the property at 620 S. 19th St. The lot is 0.29 of an acre and the house, built in 1955, has a total square footage of 4,136. The company stated that the home is currently vacant but had previously served as a boarding house and adult foster care facility in the past.
The home also once served as a child-care facility for a short time in 2015 and closed after the operator had been arrested for abuse and eventually convicted on criminal mistreatment charges.
The city is currently accepting public comments on the application with the submission deadline set for 5 p.m. April 10.
As of Friday, the city had also published an online notice of an upcoming public hearing related to land use. The Philomath Planning Commission will hold the hearing at its April 17 meeting (6 p.m. start) to take comments and discuss proposed changes to the city’s land-use notification code language.
The city recently started sending a weekly update on land-use applications to email subscribers. Over the past several months, there have been questions about transparency from at least one City Council member and members of the public.
During a Feb. 13 public hearing for a rezoning application involving property at the corner of Chapel Drive and South 19th Street — a location where a developer plans to build multi-family housing — there were comments challenging the city’s public notification methods from three separate citizens.
The city’s updates on land-use applications will reportedly occur weekly on Mondays and include a list of applications currently receiving public comments, applications with recent decisions and public hearings scheduled for either the Planning Commission or City Council.
Those who receive city news emails were automatically subscribed to the land-use application reports, although they can opt out, if desired.
The public can subscribe to the city news emails here.