WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — In a unanimous voice vote, the Hartford Planning Commission gave preliminary approval Monday to the nonprofit Hartford Community Restorative Justice Center’s plan to expand its footprint by renovating a late-19th century house on Maple Street.
The justice center, or HRJC, is looking to convert the ground floor of a barn-garage attached to the house, which is across the street from Hartford Town Hall, into meeting space. The second floor would be made into two affordable one-bedroom apartments for people recently released from incarceration and in need of transitional housing.
“I’ve got nothing but a good feeling for what you’re doing and what you’re asking for,” Planning Commission member Colin Butler told HRJC representatives at Monday’s public meeting.
Last year, HRJC served 110 individuals.
HRJC, which was founded in 2003, is one of 17 community justice centers in Vermont that is used as an alternative to the criminal court system. The centers bring together adults and juveniles who have taken responsibility for their criminal activities and the people they have harmed.
By successfully completing programs offered at HRJC, people can avoid being left with criminal records.
In recent years, HRJC also has gotten behind the effort to increase the state’s inventory of transitional housing, which is much less costly than keeping people in prison and provides them with services to reintegrate back into the community.
The house on Maple Street, which HRJC purchased in 2022 for $260,000, already has three apartments that are used for transitional housing. The renovation is estimated to cost nearly $300,000 and is expected to take about a year.
HRJC’s six staff members and volunteers have outgrown the organization’s main office space on North Main Street in downtown White River Junction.
“We get a lot of walk-in traffic,” Kevin O’Hara, HRJC’s board chairman, told the Planning Commission. “It’s always open.”
The renovations to the Maple Street property will give HRJC’s staff and volunteers much needed “one-on-one space,” for meetings with its clients, O’Hara added.
Before beginning construction, HRJC must get the Planning Commission and the town fire marshal to sign off on the project.
On Monday, the Planning Commission asked HRJC to revise several parts of its project before it grants final approval.
The commission wants HRJC to improve lighting in the property’s back parking lot and spruce up the area between the house and Maple Street sidewalk with vegetation.
As it is now, the street-front portion of the property “looks uninviting,” commission member Bruce Riddle said. “Add a little something.”
The commission also asked about parking at the property. The rear parking lot has only six spaces, leading commission members to ask whether that was sufficient for a house with five apartments.
Parking shouldn’t be an issue, HRJC board member Brett Mayfield told the commission. “Our tenants don’t have cars,” he said.
A vast majority of the people that HRJC works with rely on Advance Transit, the Upper Valley’s free bus service, to get around, Mayfield said. A bus stop is close by.
HRJC is planning to pay for the renovations and the remaining mortgage on the property through an upcoming capital campaign.
Bianca Nusca-Dugan can be reached at biancagnd14@gmail.com.