City Council approves ECHO Expansion Project

Council delegates 2025 Community Development Block Grant Funds to community

ATASCADERO — The Atascadero City Council met for its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 6 p.m. During the meeting, the council was presented with the Emergency Shelter Overlay Zone Amendment, also known as the El Camino Homeless Organization (ECHO) Expansion Project.

ECHO resides at 6370 Atascadero Ave., and the city adopted a specific zoning district for the area called the Emergency Shelter Overlay Zoning District. There’s also a Conditional Use Permit, and within that, there is an Operations and Management Plan. The amendment will touch on all three items.

“A little history on how they got here,” said Community Development Director Phil Dunsmore. “It was 2013 that the city council adopted an ordinance to allow for the emergency shelter uses there. It was 2014 that they finally adopted an Operations and Management Plan, and then later that year, the Conditional Use Permit to operate the meal program, which is an accessory to the shelter. Which accommodates folks from also outside the shelter.”

In 2019, ECHO requested amendments to increase its clients and hours of operation and decrease the number of neighborhood meetings that were held.

“Tonight, the amendments that they’re requesting, they want to increase the beds from 60 to 90 to accommodate their needs. They want to up the meal program from 80 to 100 to have the flexibility to do that,” stated Dunsmore. “And then they’d have to amend the use permit because the use permit itself also has those numbers written within it, so they have to have that to be consistent with the zoning. Then, the Management Plan would have to amend it as well because it also has those provisions in it. A part of that, too, is their request to increase the hours of the shower program up to 15 hours per week.”

The Planning Commission looked at the proposed amendments at the beginning of October this year and recommended that the council approve them. And also encouraged ECHO to meet with adjacent property owners to go over concerns. There is also a proposed addition proposed to the site in the front of the property.

During public comment on the item, 14 Atascadero residents addressed the council. Some of them live within close distance to ECHO. The overall consensus was that everyone was in favor of the expansion but that they were worried about the extension of the meal plan due to it bringing more people into their neighborhood who do not always utilize ECHO’s other programs and tools. Some of the residents also commented on not being notified of upcoming changes or the hearing, as people who were only within 300 feet of ECHO were notified.

“We support the construction of the additional building, which will better serve ECHO client families. Our issue is with the expansion of the meal program due to the impact of increasing the number of unhoused people in one small neighborhood. Increasing the meal program is for non-clients,” stated one neighbor of ECHO.

Mayor Heather Moreno stated that it was important to support the vulnerable in the situation and that some of those members of the community also include the schoolchildren and neighbors who are in the vicinity of ECHO. She also commented that the council was not unmoved by what the neighbors had to say.

After much deliberation, the council passed the expansion unanimously with some of their own amendments, including the fact that the expansion of the meal program would not start until the expansion of beds to 100 occupancy has happened and that ECHO holds at least one neighborhood meeting a year for accountability.

Public Works Analyst Ryan Betz then addressed the council with the 2025 Community Development Block Grant (CDGB) Draft Recommendations.

CDBG funds must meet at least one of the three national objectives:

A benefit to low- and moderate-income persons;
Aid in the prevention or elimination of blight;
Address urgent needs that pose a serious and immediate threat to the health or welfare of the community.

For the year 2025, $146,534 will be available. After discussion the funds will be split as follows: