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Committee advances ordinance to allow hotels and motels for interim drug-free recovery housing; three named sites added and amendments continued
Summary
The committee agreed to amendments adding three named sites (Sharon Hotel, the KEEN, and the Marina Inn) to an ordinance authorizing interim housing in tourist hotels and motels, approved the amendments, and continued the ordinance as amended to the June 16 committee meeting for further review.
The Land Use and Transportation Committee on June 9 advanced amendments to an ordinance that would allow tourist hotels and motels to be used for interim housing without abandoning their tourist-hotel land use designation and would allow certain shelter-in-place (SIP) hotels to reestablish hotel use when shelter operations end.
Supervisor Mark Dorsey (appeared as a supporter) and the ordinance sponsor framed the change as a technical tool to enable recovery-oriented, drug-free interim housing options. Emily Cohen, deputy director at the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), said the duplicate file returns to the committee with substantive amendments and three newly named sites added to the ordinance rather than broadening the ordinance citywide. The three sites named in the committee presentation are the Sharon Hotel (a 60-unit project in District 6, HSH-funded; the city is in the process of contracting with the Salvation Army to operate it), the KEEN (identified as a District 6 project funded by the Department of Public Health and to be operated by Westside Community Services; presented in the file as 76 short-term drug-free health-respite beds), and the Marina Inn (District 2; DPH-funded, operated by the Salvation Army; described as a 68-bed post-treatment abstinence-based recovery housing program with one floor dedicated to cis and transgender women).
The ordinance amends both the Planning Code and the Building Code to authorize interim housing in hotels and motels without changing the underlying occupancy classification, allows reestablishment of tourist-hotel use for certain SIP hotels, and removes Appendix P restrictions that emergency housing be located on city-owned or -leased land. The duplicate file returned from the Planning Commission was passed on consent in May. HSH staff read technical amendments into the record adding block and lot numbers for the Civic Center Motor Inn and other administrative cleanups.
Supervisors asked about tracking outcomes and turnover. HSH said the Sharon Hotel contract will include deliverables to collect bed-turnover information and recovery-aligned service deliverables; the HSH contract was approved by the relevant commission for that project. Christy Soren, deputy medical director for substance-use services at the Department of Public Health, said DPH will track occupancy, client demographics and discharge outcomes for the KEEN and Marina Inn (defining successful discharges as steps out of street homelessness or stable housing and, for the Marina Inn, outcomes that include being off substances, employed and stably housed). DPH confirmed one floor at the Marina Inn will be dedicated to cis and transgender women and that programs will track demographics; DPH said it will provide stabilization services (wound care, medication initiation) at the KEEN.
There was no public comment. Supervisor Bilal Mahmood moved to amend the ordinance as presented by HSH; the committee voted 3–0 to adopt the amendments. Mahmood then moved to continue the ordinance, as amended, to the June 16, 2025 committee meeting for additional review; that motion also passed 3–0. Committee members emphasized the city will continue community engagement, and staff said future proposed sites would require additional Board action rather than blanket exemptions.
