CHAPEL HILL - The town wants shelter guidelines, but not at the expense of delaying consideration of the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service's proposed homeless shelter.

The council voted 6-2 Monday to proceed with an upcoming review of the IFC's special use permit application to build a new 52-bed transitional facility and 17-cot emergency shelter at 1315 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard off of Homestead Road.

After that process is complete, the council will consider broad shelter guidelines which would apply to future shelter proposals.

Council members Laurin Easthom and Matt Czajkowski opposed considering the IFC project before drafting more comprehensive guidelines.

Czajkowski said the IFC's application is one of the most important ones of the year and needs to be considered with town regulations that could be enforced.

"We need to know what they are, how they will be implemented, and we need to know what we will do as a council," he said.

Other council members said the SUP process will be sufficient to weed out any problems with the IFC's proposal.

If the IFC moves its men's shelter the town plans to reclaim the building housing the current one on East Rosemary Street for town purposes.

The new proposed site off Homestead Road has drawn opposition from nearby residents.

Critics say the site is too close to day care facilities and Homestead Park, and have argued that the town shouldn't concentrate so many service functions in one limited area of town.

"It really is on the applicant to answer [if] concentration of services doesn't work for the citizens of Chapel Hill," said council member Donna Bell. "If it doesn't have a net benefit then things usually don't make it through the SUP process that I've seen."

But some residents disagreed.

It doesn't make sense to develop shelter guidelines after the IFC permit process is complete, said Tim CoyneSmith, who opposes the site of the proposed shelter.

"To defer shelter guidelines really makes a mockery for the process for shelter guidelines," he said.

The council asked the Planning Board earlier this year to draft shelter guidelines and provide more information about how other towns regulate shelters and the scope of the homeless issue in Orange County.

Town Manager Roger Stancil and town staff had asked the council to either wait to decide on the guidelines until after a decision on the IFC's SUP permit is made, or decide on guidelines and push back a decision on the shelter.

The Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness counts homeless people in the county each January. The group has not released numbers for 2011, but in 2010, 135 homeless people were counted, 102 of whom were staying in an IFC facility.

The IFC is the only organization that provides shelter services and has about 102 beds/cots and 14 floor spaces throughout the year, according to the group.

The public hearing for the IFC shelter permit is scheduled for Monday, March 21.