COEUR d'ALENE - The Coeur d'Alene Planning Commission Tuesday denied a special use permit for Port of Hope.

The drug, alcohol and residential re-entry facility for felony offenders off East Sherman Avenue will likely have to close now.

"I don't know what we're going to do," Jake Danible, controller for Port of Hope, said following the commission's unanimous decision. "I don't think they realize (the implications). We tried. Maybe we didn't do a good enough job explaining that. We're in a tough spot."

The denial means Port of Hope will not be allowed to treat felony offenders - including registered sex offenders - as it has been since 1998 at 218 N. 23rd St. It has been at that location since 1991, but treated drug and alcohol offenders before being awarded a contract with the federal government to treat other felony offenders.

The center was in the process of securing a third, five-year contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons and notified the city of its intent. The city had been unaware of the change that included felony offenders. That revelation meant Port of Hope was in violation of city zoning codes, which prompted the organization to request a special use permit.

But despite the center's track record of little to no complaints in the neighborhood over the last 15 years, the commission said the risk of housing potential sex and violent crime offenders so close to Fernan Elementary School was too great to take.

"I respect your business, your protocol and what you're doing for the community, said Rob Haneline, planning commission member. "I'm just not sure you're in the right location."

Neighbors spoke out against the facility after it became more widely known several weeks ago what inmates it was serving. Port of Hope offered to put more monitoring safeguards on the inmates, such as more GPS tracking devices and a broader no entry zone around Fernan Elementary School that would alert Port of Hope staff. It also offered not to take sex offenders - there are four there now - and asked for an extension that could allow it to keep the federal contract as it looked for a new location outside a residential neighborhood.

But the mix of felony offenders about 150 feet from a school couldn't be allowed, the commission said. The city's legal team cited statutes that made it a misdemeanor for sex offenders to live within 500 feet of a school. Sex offender statutes seemingly conflict, as one also allows for offenders to locate so close to a school if they reside in a treatment facility.

Nevertheless, the commission said, it wasn't fit for a residential neighborhood with school children commuting to and from daily.

"It's a matter of risk management," Amy Evans, planning commission member, said.

Others said Port of Hope reduces that risk by treating inmates looking to rehabilitate rather than just putting them back into society without treatment once their sentence is served. Offenders who aren't receiving treatment live in the neighborhood anyway, they said.

"The reality is we walk among (sex offenders) everyday," said Shauna Herman, a Post Falls resident who spoke in support of Port of Hope. "More offenders haven't been caught, than have."

But Moira DuCoeur, a teacher at Sorensen, said that the facility's population posed a threat to Sorensen as well as Fernan Elementary. And the proposed safeguards couldn't guarantee overall child safety.

"Just a few minutes of deviation creates a victim," she said.

Port of Hope can appeal the decision to the City Council. Danible said he will see if it's possible that the center receives an extension through the city to continue operating as it goes through the appeal process, if it chooses to pursue that route.

If they don't appeal, the roughly $5 million federal contract will go back out to bid and other companies can bid on it and locate a facility somewhere in Kootenai County, which is the federally mandated area the facility has to go. If Port of Hope closes, 35 jobs will go with it.

"It's crushing," Danible said after the meeting, preparing to go back and tell inmates and staff they are likely closing. "It's going to be terrible."