COVINGTON — Advocates and opponents of a proposed social-services center made their arguments Tuesday to the body that will decide the project's fate.

        Covington city commissioners listened to arguments over the Life Learning Center during a public hearing that attracted more than 300 people to the Madison banquet room.

        The five-member commission could vote as early as May 7 on a zone change that would clear the way for the project proposed for the 1300 block of Madison Avenue, on the site of a former auto dealership.

        “This project will be a vast improvement for this community because it is addressing a need that is seldom given so much attention,” said the Rev. William Hughes, retired bishop of the Diocese of Covington and a supporter of the project.

        “It provides needed services to the poor and needy,” he said.

        Other speakers on behalf of the project included Covington Independent Schools Superintendent Jack Moreland and Edward Hughes, president of the of Northern Kentucky Community and Technical College being developed in Boone County.

        The college will offer classes and other training at the center and may open a satellite campus just north of the facility.

        Both Mr. Moreland and Edward Hughes said the center and college will empower people to seek a better education and improve their lives while improving the community.

        “This is too great an opportunity to let pass,” Mr. Hughes said.

        The center is proposed by Bill Butler, a Covington native andreal-estate developer.

        It is designed to provide a variety of services — education, job and life-skills training, housing, assistance with budgeting, and a medical clinic — to move homeless people to self-sufficiency.

        But residents near the proposed center said the neighborhood is being used by people who live outside the community and want to build the project near their homes.

        “We're sympathetic to the people whom this project would serve,” said Sandy Arnold. “But what about the people who live here now? We need to be heard.”

        Carol Verst, who has lived on Scott Street for 43 years, said she fears that despite the best efforts of the center's staff, homeless people and others will infiltrate the neighborhood.

        “I don't want to wake up and find somebody sleeping on my porch,” she said.

        Up to 80 people will stay for six to 18 months at the center, participating in mandatory classes and training, as well as drug and alcohol testing.

        In addition to dormitories, the center will contain a kitchen and dining area, pharmacy and medical clinic, classrooms for adults and toddlers, a main gathering room, a chapel and a laundry where residents can work and be paid while in the program.

        The center's $3 million development costs and $2.5 million budget will come almost entirely from private donations raised mostly in the business community by Mr. Butler.

        Several Northern Kentucky social-service agencies are supporting the center and will be involved by running satellite operations in the facility.

        Those groups are:

        • Welcome House, a shelter for homeless and battered women and children.

        • The Mental Health Association of Northern Kentucky.

        • Transitions Inc.

        • Catholic Social Services.

        • NorthKey Community Care.

        • Northern Kentucky Housing and Homeless Coalition.

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