POCATELLO — The future looks brighter for a proposed group-living facility for the homeless after the Pocatello Planning and Zoning Commission voted Wednesday night to supply the City Council with a recommendation to approve rezoning the area to allow a local pastor to construct the complex.

The six-member commission made its decision after a more than four-hour hearing that included testimony from a handful of people in favor of and more than two dozen others who spoke against Pocatello Pastor Jacqualine “Big Momma” Thomas’ supportive housing complex, which she would like to construct on the 1200 block of Pershing Avenue near WinCo Foods.

About 200 people packed into the council chambers at City Hall for Wednesday night’s hearing on Thomas’ proposed homeless facility, known as “Big Momma’s House.”

The Planning and Zoning Commission made its eventual 4-2 decision to recommend the zoning change needed for the facility to be built after several motions for and against the project failed to get enough support to pass and the large crowd at the meeting began to thin as the night wore on. Normally, the commission has seven members, but one commission member was absent because of a previously scheduled engagement.

Ryan Satterfield, the Planning and Zoning Commission chair, said that voting on the rezone request for Big Momma’s House was the toughest decision he’s faced during his seven years on the commission. He ultimately voted against the zoning change.

Mitch Fisher, a resident of McCormack Street who lives directly adjacent to the proposed site for the homeless facility, has been one of the main voices of opposition to the project. He told the Journal on Thursday that he thinks several members of the commission voted in favor of the rezone request based on their personal experiences with homelessness as opposed to considering the facts of the request and proposed facility.

“The commission was not full which knocked things off kilter at the end,” Fisher said. “We feel that one of the commission members was pushed into changing their vote so that they could all go home for the night.”

Nearly every person who spoke against Thomas’ request for a rezone said they stood behind Big Momma’s House and the mission that Thomas has in helping the homeless community in Pocatello. Several opponents pointed out the proposed location on Pershing Avenue is within a few hundred yards of an elementary school and a daycare.

Many of those who spoke against the rezone request provided the commission with stories of their children playing freely in the neighborhood or doing so themselves as children many years ago. Coupled with these narratives were fears that a large group-living facility for the homeless would infringe on those freedoms.

Others voiced concerns regarding the plans for Big Momma’s House changing many times including several changes just weeks leading up to the hearing on Wednesday.

“We love the idea, it’s just in the wrong place,” Fisher said during the hearing on Wednesday night. “The problem is this has changed several times in the last few weeks. These codes and covenants were put in place to protect us from haphazard panning. One day it’s a security guard, the next is no security. Many of us have been here since the early ‘50s. We have put money into our homes and we hope that one day we can pull that money out for our retirement.”

Another person who spoke against the endeavor provided concerns about the facility based on the information provided in a letter that members of the Big Momma’s House board of directors sent to nearby residents. In that letter, board members provided an example of another facility located in Salt Lake City, Utah, that Big Momma’s House will closely mirror.

As an emergency medical technician for an ambulance service in Salt Lake City, the individual who spoke against Big Momma’s House provided stories of responding to numerous emergency calls to the Utah-based group-living facility, reporting that conditions of the complex were extremely unsanitary. He said he responded to calls of drug overdoses, incidents of domestic violence and several welfare-related disturbances.

Moving forward, the Pocatello City Council will ultimately have final say on whether to rezone the area to allow Thomas to construct her homeless facility, which is currently set to include up to 24 units in a two-story building. As of now, no date has yet been scheduled for the City Council to hear that request.

Satterfield told the Journal on Thursday that if the City Council approves the rezoning request, Thomas and her group of supporters must still apply for and receive a conditional use permit to operate the group-living facility for the homeless on the newly rezoned parcel of land.

Though she still has several milestones to reach before she can establish her facility for the homeless, Thomas said the commission’s decision on Wednesday night was a giant step in the right direction.

“I’m overwhelmed,” Thomas said immediately after the hearing on Wednesday night. “I was praying the whole time I was sitting there, and I was asking God to please touch the commissioners’ hearts, souls and minds. I also want to let the community know that I think they are a loving community and that change sometimes is hard. But if we can all come together as a team we can make this work.”

Despite approximately 30 people speaking against her mission, Thomas said she still believes she “picked the best neighborhood in the world to go into.”

“I just want the neighbors to know that we are not here to create a problem. We are here to solve a problem,” Thomas said. “And it will take all of us working together as a team to make it work.”