With the Houston City Council set to vote on proposed ordinances to overhaul regulations for boarding homes and other multi-resident housing, criminal justice reform advocates objected to a proposed 1,000 foot buffer zone for “alternative housing facilities,” saying it would make it harder to provide re-entry services.

The ordinances come after several fires in unregulated and unsafe multi-resident housing over the last year. One fire, in an unregulated lodging house, killed two people, while a separate fire at a boarding home displaced more than two dozen others.

A subsequent Houston Chronicle investigation after last year's fires found Houston provides little scrutiny, spotty inspections and inadequate enforcement of the facilities.

INVESTIGATION: Fatal fire exposes lax oversight by city, state of Houston's rooming houses

In response to the fires, city officials proposed an overhaul of the regulations for “lodging facilities,” boarding homes, and alternative housing/correctional facilities.

Among the most significant proposed changes: requiring annual permits and life safety inspections for such facilities, some of which previously only had to register with the city or went unregulated. It also would require that they have fire extinguishers, fire evacuation routes and housing basics as simple as framed beds. It would also establish a wider buffer zone around alternative housing/correctional facilities.

“This is a complex issue,” said Lara Cottingham, with the city’s Administration of Regulatory Affairs. “The challenge the city faces is balancing public safety with affordable housing and neighborhood concerns.”

BACKGROUND: After fatal fires, Houston officials propose stronger lodging house safety rules

Criminal justice reform advocates, expressed concern that a proposed buffer zone requiring the various facilities to be located at least 1,000 feet away from schools, public parks, and other alternative housing facilities, saying it would not reduce crime, and in fact might have the opposite effect.

“The increased distance requirements and regulations make it more difficult to provide alternative housing to returning parolees, the residents will face the choice of homelessness or returning to the environments where they committed their crimes,” wrote Crosswalk Center Executive Director Kathy Vosburg, along with Prison Entrepreneurship Program CEO Bryan Kelley, CEO.

Jay Jenkins, with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, said the buffer zone would make it harder to house the more than 10,000 parolees that arrive in Houston every year.

MAYOR: Turner steps up efforts to oversee rooming, boarding houses

“If the city is going to increase the standards and the frequency of inspections, we support that,” Jenkins said. “But the 1,000 foot distance makes it impossible for these reentry service providers to provide re-entry services.”

Neighborhood groups, particularly in the Near Northside and in southwest Houston - areas where there are large numbers of the multi-resident facilities, favor the proposed buffer zone.

Former councilmember Graciela Saenz, who has advocated for the buffer zone, said residents of the Near Northside had felt inundated with the facilities.

“There has to be a balance, and that’s something being addressed with this ordinance,” she said. “We’re trying to rectify something that should have been done years ago.”

St. John Barned-Smith covers public safety and major breaking news for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Send tips to st.john.smith@chron.com.