Plans for an “open” summertime homeless shelter at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church received approval Wednesday from the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission.

If the Lawrence City Commission concurs, Lawrence Open Shelter Inc. will accept overnight residents including those who have been drinking alcohol between late June and early August at the church gymnasium.

The Salvation Army shelter, which remains open this summer, generally does not admit people who fail an alcohol breath test. Open shelter advocates say their alternative may help prevent another in a series of homeless deaths in Lawrence over the past two summers.

“Providing an open shelter makes this a safer community for everyone,” said Elizabeth Smith, secretary of Lawrence Open Shelter Inc.

Planning commissioners put a number of conditions on their approval, including an order that Lawrence Open Shelter purchase a $1 million liability insurance policy for incidents on the premises at 1229 Vt. and another unspecified “umbrella” policy to cover incidents caused by the shelter’s guests in the surrounding neighborhood.

“We’re doing something in this neighborhood that did not anticipate this kind of activity, and they deserve that protection,” Planning Commission Chairman Ron Durflinger said.

Laura Palmer, who lives near the church, said she was concerned about the proposal. She said a similar shelter, operated at the church last summer by the Coalition for Homeless Concerns, had led to problems with homeless people showing up on the lawns and porches of nearby residents.

“There could still be problems,” Palmer said.

Smith said Lawrence Open Shelter would include professional staff (instead of all volunteers) and had come up with a set of rules designed to prevent a repeat of the problems.

“It’s going to be a different operation,” Smith said.

Neighborhood concerns were a big part of why Commissioner John Haase was the lone vote against the proposal.

“We know we’re going to have a residential neighborhood that will suffer as a result of what we do here,” he said.

Commissioners also mandated a city commission review of the shelter’s effects on the surrounding neighborhood before it can re-open again next summer.

Even commissioners who approved the plan expressed discomfort with its location.

“The biggest issue is whether it’s OK to put this in a residential area,” Commissioner David Burress said. “In an ideal world, we wouldn’t.”

The city commission will consider the proposal at an unspecified future meeting.