CHAPEL HILL - Residents packed the Town Council chamber and two overflow rooms Monday night to debate the proposed site of a new men's homeless shelter.

The Inter-Faith Council for Social Service wants to build a 52-bed transitional facility and 17-cot emergency shelter at1315 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard off of Homestead Road. The facility would include clinic and office space and would replace the group's shelter on Rosemary Street downtown.

The Planning Board and several citizen advisory boards have recommended approval. The IFC has agreed to draft a Good Neighbor Plan, outlining procedures for responding to neighbors' concerns and working with police.

The new shelter would offer a transitional facility to help men move toward independent living and also provide separate overnight shelter for up to 17 men. The men using the overnight shelter would be screened for drugs and alcohol and transported to and from the facility each day.

Sex offenders would not be allowed to use the facility because of the site's proximity to a park and other places where children gather.

Opponents said the site was chosen without public input and driven by university and business interests that want to move the current men's homeless shelter out of downtown Chapel Hill. The proposed site in northern Chapel Hill is owned by the university, which would lease it to the town.

"What I don't understand is how external pressures can override common sense," resident Tim CoyneSmith said. "I ask you when you take a look at all the evidence that has been submitted and when you're deliberating on evidence to put aside those external pressures."

Comments were split. By press time Monday, about 45 people had spoken, including shelter residents and volunteers.

"I was there for nine months," said former resident David Smith. "I lost my house, I lost my wife ... nobody on the streets would help; the staff at IFC, they provided me a home. I know at least 20 people that turned themselves around. You never hear the good things the numbers tell."

The IFC partners with about 60 congregations in the Chapel Hill area to provide hunger relief and housing assistance. One in five people are poor in Orange County, executive director Chris Moran said.

Representatives from the IFC's team said the agency needs the new site to better serve those who need help. They said the shelter would not hurt property values.

"Poverty is the real challenge in our community and most communities in the United States," Moran said. "Hunger, homelessness and poverty is interlinked all the time; this is very important."