So Tacoma's growth management staff wants City Council members to extend a moratorium on creating certain types of housing - via new construction or conversion of existing space - for up to six months. The 180-day ban is due to expire Nov. 15.

"We have to do it," City Councilman Tom Stenger said of the extension. "It's our main legal route right now for crime prevention and to make our neighborhoods more livable."

The council is scheduled to conduct a public hearing on the proposed extension at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. Council members likely will vote on the issue Nov. 1.

The moratorium affects group homes, group residential facilities, lodging houses, emergency and transitional housing and housing for "high-risk/high-needs" residents.

The moratorium has raised the profile of an issue that's bothered many residents for years. And it's generated a civic discussion on how best to balance the desires of residents to live in safe, crime-free neighborhoods with society's needs to house the homeless, recovering drug and alcohol addicts, and those recently released from mental institutions and correctional facilities.

The City Council enacted the controversial moratorium last May after outrage from Hilltop-area residents squashed a proposed transitional home for up to 60 adults at South 21st Street and South Ainsworth Avenue. Amazing Grace Ministries wanted to house recovering drug addicts and alcoholics, Level 1 sex offenders, recently released prisoners and mentally ill people there.

The Hilltop Action Coalition and other community groups fought the facility, saying the area already is home to more than its fair share of agencies and homes that serve such special populations.

"There was a justifiable hue and cry from the neighbors, saying that ‘Our quality of life is being affected and will be continue to be affected unless you do something,'" Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma said Friday.

Huffman expects the group to wrap up its discussions and present its conclusions to the Planning Commission Nov. 8. The Planning Commission is expected to make recommendations to the City Council in March.

Regulating housing of certain populations "involves balancing state statutes and federal statutes against what it is we're trying to accomplish," he said. "It's not easy to do, nor easy to understand."

David Curry, executive director of the Tacoma Rescue Mission, said he opposes the moratorium extension because the ban doesn't address many of the issues of concern to residents.

The city has enacted a number of laws aimed at preventing crime, eliminating dangerous buildings and making potent alcohol more difficult for people to buy in some areas, Stenger said.

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