At your regular meeting on January 15, 2019 staff presented to you a proposed code amendment to remove hotels as eligible use within the highway commercial district and to only allow them as a conditional use. The proposed ordinance also included provisions to not allow the hotels/motels to be used as transient housing. After public comment by several of the hotel/motel owners and discussion by Council, the item was tabled in order to conduct a work session with all of the hotel/motel owners to obtain input on the proposed ordinance and to determine the best way to move forward on this issue.

Since the proposed ordinance was introduced, our City Attorney has worked on updating the draft. The most significant change is to the definition of Transient Residential Lodging. The important change is the clear presumption for the definition to fit any property where the percentage of stays meets the set thresholds. Property owners will now have the opportunity to establish that any stay exceeding the thresholds should not count toward the percentage if the person in the room has another permanent residence and is only temporarily displaced by a construction project, new employment, a temporary business project, disaster or damage to the permanent residence. The percentage threshold has also been increased to twenty-five percent. Finally, the grandfather provision in Section IX of the ordinance has been adjusted to commence upon the effective date and expire on April 1, 2022.  Additionally, the term “occupant” has been added to the identification requirement, so that identification is required of each occupant of the room along with the person renting it.  These provisions only apply to any current motel meeting the definition of transient residential lodging that wishes to continue to operate as such until the grandfathering expires.

For your convenience, I have attached a copy of the proposed ordinance to aid you in the discussion with the property owners.