Fargo F5 Project continues to work with city in accordance with codes and regulations

At a Monday city commission meeting, Fargo City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn said the F5 Project must stop what they're doing in the city.

"They have to stop whatever they're doing right now because right now they're not following our rules and they're in our city," Piepkorn said. A vote on the matter was not held because according to Piepkorn, F5 isn't following the city's rules.

Fargo F5 Project's mission is to help those struggling with addiction and have been recently released from prison. They have four sober houses in Fargo and the group's founder, Adam Martin, said they are in fact following established guidelines.

"We're within code. We're doing everything we can to be within the normal code," Martin said. "We're going through the application process right now to have group housing so that we can have more people in a house."

At the beginning of August, it was discovered the sober houses were not following codes put in place for group homes. Martin said that discovery is what led to them fixing the problem.

The August 3rd meeting between Martin and city leaders took place to get the group home application process rolling. Fargo Senior Planner Dan Mahli said the city is willing to work with Martin because he's trying to help those battling addiction.

"We have a group who is trying to meet a need and we got to make sure it fits with existing codes," Mahli said.

Martin said the reason they have four houses with plans to purchase more is so they don't violate any codes.

"The way for us to violate that code is to have more than three non-family members living per unit. If we had those appropriate applications approved, we'd only have one or two houses, but since we don't have those yet and we're in the process of doing it, that's why we have four," Martin said.

Piepkorn said the city planning department will determine what, if any action needs to be taken regarding the F5 Project.

The two sides plan to meet in October to discuss this issue.