GREENFIELD — The Zoning Board of Appeals voted 6-1 against an appeal of Clinical & Support Options’ (CSO) permit to open a temporary homeless shelter on Arch Street Thursday evening, a vote that prompted discussion on how the city should handle public notice for site plan reviews in the future.

Resident Stephanie Duclos, who lives across the street from the 6 Arch St. site, initially presented her appeal to the ZBA on May 30, arguing that contractors working for CSO are parking in areas that encroach on her land, overwhelming the sewer system and causing sewer backups. Similarly, Chapman Street resident Allen Constantine spoke Thursday about his ongoing litigation with CSO for alleged encroachment on his property.

Duclos’ main argument, however, was CSO will need a special permit to use the office space for housing — a point that Samuel Prickett, an attorney representing CSO, refuted on Thursday. Prickett noted that although the site will provide food, boarding and showers, it will be used primarily as an educational facility, which does not require a special permit.

“We don’t feel it falls under that residential section, that’s how we feel,” Prickett said. “People are not going to be living there in the residential sense.”

Because the Planning Board approved the site plan for the Arch Street project — which aims to temporarily accommodate 45 shelter beds while CSO’s location at 60 Wells St. undergoes a $23 million renovation — on Jan. 4, the ZBA debated whether it had the authority to send the matter back to the Planning Board for additional review.

ZBA Chair David Singer, who spoke in favor of sending the application back to the Planning Board for a more thorough and publicly accessible site plan review, said he believes CSO has a right to occupy the Arch Street site without a special permit under Chapter 40A, Section 3, also known as the Dover Amendment, which limits local municipalities’ ability to regulate or restrict land or structures with designated religious or educational uses.

However, Singer argued that the public was not given proper notice or information about the site’s potentially negative community impacts during CSO’s initial site plan review before the Planning Board in January.

“Let’s say there was a junky piece of property and buildings causing all sorts of problems and it had a use that was allowed. If somebody came and said, ‘I want to switch the use,’ and the opinion was, ‘You can switch the use because it’s allowed,’ but that property is causing harm to everybody around it and we all know that, would we ignore that that’s happening during the site plan review and just say, ‘Well, the use was already allowed by right?’” Singer asked the board, outlining a hypothetical scenario. “We have an opportunity to look at what’s going on this property and make sure that if they’re going to get this new use, they’re also going to clear up some of the problems.”

Others, such as ZBA Clerk Peter Wozniak, who voted against Duclos’ appeal, said he was not sure the ZBA has the authority to retroactively decide that the Planning Board must more thoroughly consider its site plan review.

“This was before the Planning Board, the public had a chance to review this and critique it and they didn’t,” Wozniak explained. “That site plan, that was approved, and I don’t see anything in the Planning Board’s commentary about the criteria that was not acceptable.”

After the ZBA voted — both to recognize the Planning Board’s approval of CSO’s site plan review and to decide that the nonprofit does not require a special permit for the site’s change of use — ZBA member Mark Maloni requested that the board work to draft policies to handle similar situations in the future.

Duclos, in an interview Friday, said she plans to file litigation appealing the city’s decision, claiming that the ZBA lacked the authority to decide whether the Dover Amendment is applicable to the CSO site’s change of use.

“The board took a very thoughtful and thorough overview of both our application and the appeal. We are pleased with the outcome, so that we can move forward with this project and bring the resources to the city,” CSO President and CEO Karin Jeffers said in an interview Thursday evening after the ZBA’s vote. “We heard all of the great recommendations that came out of tonight and we will gather internally and do some follow-up from there. We certainly have been committed to maintaining our property and we will continue to do that.”

Anthony Cammmalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.