I got a couple of calls after last week's column about this being a pivotal election for Chapel Hill. In the column I noted how a reader had asked about the public process behind picking Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near Homestead Road as the site for the new men's homeless shelter.

I told the reader there had been no public process. The mayor, the then chancellor and the head of the Inter-Faith Council just announced it one morning. I did not say there would be no public process moving forward. But one caller suggested some readers might have interpreted it that way.

Carlo Robustelli, the mayor's aide, forwarded a letter Mayor Kevin Foy recently sent some Homestead Road area residents. The letter explains the town's development review process. I also got information from Chris Moran, the head of the IFC, who sent a fact sheet about the project.

To date, there has been only one town meeting on the new IFC shelter, although presentations have been made to the UNC Board of Trustees and two other campus committees, according to that fact sheet. The university is leasing the land to the town, which is leasing it to the IFC.

A concept plan, or rough outline, went to the town's Design review Commission June 17. The plan was supposed to go to the Town Council last week, as I wrote, but has been delayed until Oct. 19. The concept plan is an informal step to get early feedback before an official application for a special use permit. No permit has yet been applied for, and despite the three leaders' announcement of the new site, no lease has been signed, according to the fact sheet.

Once the IFC applies for the permit, the town will invite neighbors within 1,000 feet to a public information meeting. The neighbors will get another letter when the permit application goes before the planning board. The point is, between the information meeting, the meetings of various town advisory boards, the planning board and finally the Town Council, the public will have many chances to comment on the proposed men's shelter.

In fact, this is how most development occurs. Someone buys a property or buys an option on property, makes a proposal and it either goes forward or goes nowhere.

Some current candidates also think it goes on for too long, without any assurance that developers or the town get what they want in the end. Incumbent Ed Harison called the SUP process a "crap shoot" at last week's Neighbors for Responsible Growth forum. Challenger Gene Pease said it flat out doesn't work and needs an overhaul.

The IFC won't begin building the new shelter, assuming it's approved, until the bulk of its $3.8 million cost is raised. The agency has about $800,000 now. It also won't move ahead until it knows where it will move the community kitchen, which now shares space in the shelter building at North Columbia and West Rosemary streets. The IFC wants to co-locate its pantry and kitchen in one place.

The IFC's goal in the new shelter is to provide 52 beds for homeless men. But this won't be a flop-house, Moran says. Like its shelter for women and children on Homestead Road, the IFC wants to create a structured program that moves men to independent living.

So I asked Moran what happens to the homeless men who don't buy into the restrictions, the ones who just want to crash, even if that means a mattress on the floor. There are 30 beds and 25 "permanent floor spaces" at the current men's shelter.

"That's a good question,' he said. "And the way I will answer that is how will the county respond to that? Who takes ownership of that?"

That's a question you're not likely to hear at the candidates forums.