The Arkansas Department of Community Correction (DCC) will not be permitted to open halfway-transitional facilities on property it owns on the west side of Pine Bluff without going to the Pine Bluff Planning Commission and seeking a permit, Circuit Judge Rob Wyatt Jr. ruled Monday.
Wyatt also issued an injunction, effective immediately, that prohibits the DCC from operating the facility until it goes before the planing commission and/or city council, or “until there are further orders of this court.”
Assistant Attorney General Scott Richardson, who was representing the DCC, had argued that the department was immune from a lawsuit on the issue and that the department had been given authority by the state legislature to use the property as it deemed necessary.
“The city of Pine Bluff is attempting to use zoning to reverse legislative control of discretionary authority given to the department and that is banned,” Richardson said.
Wyatt said state law requires the Board of Corrections to “comply with all existing local and state health codes and to comply with zoning codes.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“How do you get around that? Wyatt asked. “Does that not waive the sovereign immunity claim?”
Pine Bluff City Attorney Althea Hadden-Scott had filed the original complaint after the city council instructed her to take some legal action to try and prevent DCC from using four remodeled duplexes on property at the Southeast Arkansas Community Correction facility, 7301 W. 13th Ave., for transitional housing for prison inmates who had been approved for parole, but had no place to go.
“It is the city’s contention that converting the DCC property creates a nuisance because it concentrates a number of parolees into one area, some of whom could be convicted of violent crimes or be sex offenders, and that presents a danger to residents of the area,” Hadden-Scott said.
The property in question was originally annexed into the city limits of Pine Bluff in 1999, along with other prison property such as the Pine Bluff Unit, the Randall Williams Unit and the Diagnostic Unit, and was grandfathered in as a non-conforming use of the city’s zoning code, which classified the entire area as R-1 (Residential).
Benny Magness, chairman of the Board of Correction, who was a member of that board when the property was annexed, admitted that neither the board or the departments of correction or the community correction, had ever asked for a change in the zoning classification for their properties, and that they “had no intention of going to the city and asking for a zoning change.”
“We will do what the court says,” Magness said.
City zoning official Lakisha Hill said that the property used by DCC and the Department of Correction was “legal non-conforming use” under the zoning code, and when DCC “changed the use of the duplexes, it changed the legal non-conforming use of the property,” requiring approval from the city.
Questioned by Richardson, Hill said the same set of circumstances could apply to any plans by the Department of Correction to use the now-closed Diagnostic Unit for another purpose.
“If the DOC did something different, they would have to get approval,” Hill said.
A resident of the area, Ora Mays, who brought the initial complaint to the city council after reading about the DCC’s plans in the newspaper, said she was concerned about children living in the area who could possibly be exposed to former inmates staying at the halfway houses.
“We’ve got schools. We’ve got daycare. We’ve got a lot of elderly people and we do not need to have this halfway house where they (the former inmates) could mix with the community,” Mays said.
Mays also said that residents of the area were not notified of the planned use of the duplexes, and attempts to contact officials from the Board of Correction and DCC initially were unsuccessful.
There was a public meeting on the issue in March but Mays said that took place only after area residents contacted a member of the state legislature.
Regarding the public being notified of the plans, Magness said the issue was discussed at board meetings “two or three times,” and said those meetings were open to the public, and publicized in advance by correctional personnel.
Community Correction personnel have said the planned halfway houses would hold about 30 former inmates, who would be required to work and pay rent, as well as take care of the property. They would not be supervised 24 hours per day, but there would be space in the facility for a probation/parole officer to have an office.
Additional security measures would have included additional cameras, a new fence separating the halfway house from the current DCC facility that houses women, and a new access road.
Damien McNeil, an assistant director who oversees special projects for DCC, said there are about 2,000 former inmates in Jefferson County who are being supervised by probation/parole officers and who had committed a variety of offenses, including violent crimes and sex crimes.
He said it was likely that the people selected for the halfway houses “would require more approval than normal (applications for parole) since the application process they would go through would require more of a review.”
Department officials have said they had not yet decided on the selection process or how long the former inmates would be allowed to stay.