Zoning verdict delayed on Norristown Hospitality Center, as neighbors weigh in

NORRISTOWN — Community members split on a prospective place for the Norristown Hospitality Center spent hours vocalizing their opinions during a Tuesday night zoning meeting, culminating with the Norristown Zoning Hearing Board announcing they’d be waiting up to 45 days to render a decision.

The board took up a number of zoning requests during the April 22 meeting, with the nonprofit’s variance request for a property at 336 E. Moore St. being the last one heard. Public comment on the matter went on for more than two hours as some 30 individuals on both sides of the issue approached the podium and made their opinions known.

“We have to start treating people with dignity, kindness and respect. When we say inclusion, that means including everyone, no matter what their condition,” said a Norristown resident.

“In our neighborhood, we can’t afford this right now,” said Norristown resident Derrick Jones, adding “we already have issues.”

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Jones told zoning hearing board members he drafted a petition that amassed 80 signatures in opposition of the Norristown Hospitality Center’s plans to move to the prospective site at the intersection of Walnut and Moore streets, situated in a residential area.

Addressing local need

The nonprofit has been providing social services to more than 1,200 people per year experiencing financial hardships and homelessness in the Norristown community, operating at 530 Church St. for the last two decades, according to Norristown Hospitality Center Executive Director Sunanda Charles.

“We are an anchor organization in the community, and it’s a vital resource in this community,” Charles told The Times Herald in an interview Friday. “It’s important that we continue our work…”

The nonprofit organization was notified in July 2024 they’d need to find a new space as the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania relocated its headquarters to Norristown, Charles said. While the Norristown Hospitality Center was engaged in a month-to-month lease in recent years, Charles noted a deadline approaching for the nonprofit to find a place to land.

“It is important for us to stay in the community and it is so hard to find the right property in this community — somewhere where people can walk to,” Charles said.

Charles said the nonprofit found the mixed-use property at Walnut and Moore and entered into a $925,000 purchasing contract in December 2024 with the Flourtown-based property owners Mill City Properties. In addition to the main building, the tract includes a townhouse and nine parking spaces in the parking lot, Charles said. However, she stressed it was contingent on zoning approval. “Because if we don’t get the variance, we cannot buy the building,” she said.

Neighborhood concerns

Residents in the Moore Street neighborhood who showed up in opposition expressed their concerns with the nonprofit’s proximity to children, as well as the current lack of parking and added burdens to the area.

“Yes, people need help but it doesn’t have to be here,” a Norristown resident said, adding that “Norristown is a dumping ground for everybody’s problems.”

Rev. Andrea Gardner, a deacon at St. Augustine Of Hippo in Norristown and board president of the Norristown Hospitality Center, acknowledged resident concerns associated with the current location, “people lingering outside” and “smoking,” but said the “major complaints are going to be addressed” with the new space.

“Our new property gets rid of both of those problems,” she said.

However, Jones asserted that hospitality center representatives “haven’t been able to control them on Church Street,” and stressed that “it would be a hardship.”

Need increasing

“Unfortunately there’s been a homelessness increase, not just here but across the country,” Gardner said, emphasizing the need for the center’s services.

While homelessness is evident countywide, concentrations are more visible in Norristown and Pottstown.

“While I agree with many who have said, ‘yes, this is on our doorstep. Yes, this is something that we need to deal with,’ I want there to be a firm acknowledgement that this is not only on Norristown’s doorstep, but this is a much larger issue. But it cannot only be Norristown’s job to offer hospitality. It cannot only be Norristown’s job to offer shelter, to offer covering and protection,” said Norristown Municipal Councilwoman Mydera Robinson, who made remarks during public comment, speaking as a resident not a public figure.

“This is the county seat. The county courthouse is here. The county probation office is here, the transportation center’s here,” said Coalition to Save Lives Director Michael Kingsley. “Where else are those people going to go? Are they going to walk to Lansdale? No. They going to walk to Pottstown? No. We need to be in Norristown.”

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County’s regional approach

To address the growing homelessness,  Montgomery County has begun implementing plans with a regional approach, executing leases for rooms at a Pottstown hotel and an office building in Lansdale that will soon become a 20-bed supportive short term housing facility operated by the Philadelphia-based Resources for Human Development. Another proposal was on the same Norristown Zoning Hearing Board docket for a request to operate a “temporary housing facility” at 1430 DeKalb St. That was not heard on Tuesday.

“I think that we have this kind of misconception that homelessness, most of the time, looks a certain way, and that’s not the case,” said Norristown resident Aminah Armstrong, noting cases ranging from mental health and substance use issues and “illness.”

“Homelessness, a lot of the time is due to illness. None of us in this room can say that we won’t wake up one day so sick that we can’t afford our medical bills to end up on the street,” she said.

Public comment wrapped up after midnight and the three  present municipal zoning hearing board members informed the crowd they wouldn’t be rendering a verdict just yet. Zoning hearing board members have up to 45 days to issue a decision.

“I’m definitely disappointed. I felt that they had enough information tonight to make a decision,” Gardner told The Times Herald. “They know the work that they do, they know the good that we do in the community. I think they’re scared.”

‘Dead in the water’

The Norristown Hospitality Center has until the end of May to find a new operational space, but Charles said she plans to ask for an extension. Gardner stressed how the current situation has put their plans in limbo.

“We can’t go to closing. We can’t start renovations, nothing, until we have this zoning decision. We’re dead in the water,” Gardner said.

As nonprofit leaders begin drafting possible contingency plans, Charles emphasized the need to reach out to nearby organizations for assistance in the interim.

“It is going to greatly impact us in terms of … what that’s going to do to our operations if we have a deadline of 30th of May and we don’t have a place to go to,” Charles said, adding “if it comes to that, we will find a way because that’s what we’ve always done.”

“We’ve always found a way to do things, but this is a very different kind of challenge, and it does require the community to support us at this time,” she said.