The Houston Community Services Association is sticking to its plan to open a thrift store despite its favoured location being denied by the District of Houston council.
The association has an agreement to rent the United Church building on Butler which is now zoned for institutional use.
But it also wanted to run a thrift store at the location and in order to do that, requested a site specific commercial rezoning.
That prompted a public hearing April 16 at which residents around the church building raised a number of objections, including increased traffic and the prospect of unwanted people coming into the neighbourhood.
Association employees spoke of the programs it wanted to run from the building, concentrating on young people and, in particular, teaching job skills that would come from working at a thrift store.
They said there was an emerging substance use problem among young people in Houston and area and that specific youth programs are needed.
The employees also said a thrift store would provide lower cost items, particularly at a time when the local economy was being affected by the Canfor sawmill closure.
But council, in considering the wholesale neighbourhood opposition, voted unanimously against the request.
Association family support coordinator Ashley Ridgway says it is now moving forward to use a small storage building attached to the side of its office building.
“Hours will be 1-5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday. However an opening date hasn’t been confirmed yet,” she said.
Ridgway did say that the association looked for suitable space elsewhere before its agreement with the United Church but could find nothing that was suitable and within its budget.
“The current zoning of the United Church building is P1, which allows public and institutional use. This leaves many opportunities for us to explore, but again, nothing is confirmed or planned as of now,” Ridgway added.
She said that while the association now works with young people under the age of 25, that is primarily one-to-one and that the goal of the association is to have young people more involved in the community.
“We will always seek out ways to benefit the youth within our community, and we will continue with the model we originally proposed for the thrift store project and encourage youth to volunteer through the program to develop their workplace skills,” Ridgway continued.
The association’s thrift store concept grew out of its existing and very active program to provide donated essential items at no charge to families and individuals in need.
That list includes items ranging from kitchen items, clothes, linens, boots, shoes, hygiene products, winter gear, diapers, pet food, and furniture.
It then would sell items considered as non-essential in its thrift store.
The prospect of being able to sell non-essential items would also reduce the amount of items that might otherwise be taken to the landfill.
Although council members voted against the United Church building rezoning request they did express support for a thrift store and hoped one could be found at another location.