Officials revise Garrett hotel ordinance

Officials revise Garrett hotel ordinance

Sarah Moses
Cumberland Times-News

OAKLAND — With the original proposal rejected by the Garrett County commissioners, a revised amendment to the hotel/motel ordinance has been approved by the county planning commission.

“In general, I think we had a very good plan put forth,” Troy Ellington, chairman of the planning commission, said. “But (John ‘Smiley’ Kessler) raised some good points.”

The proposal, which was established to more clearly define a hotel or motel room, was submitted to the commissioners on Jan. 8. The provisions of the amendment to the Deep Creek Lake Watershed zoning ordinance would have defined specifically those hotels that have kitchen areas inside.

After the planning commission originally submitted its proposed change to the ordinance, Kessler, who is currently developing Aqua Mountain Resort, an indoor waterpark hotel, submitted further questions concerning the proposed provisions.

Taking Kessler’s questions, the planning commission approved changes to the original submitted proposal.

One suggestion was to ensure that the definitions included “rooms and/or suites” rather than “rooms and suites.” Another was to clearly define a room key as something that grants access to the hotel room, not necessarily a traditional key.

Also altered after the planning meeting Wednesday was the provision that said any room more than 1,000 square feet would be considered a dwelling unit and would require a 4,800-foot lot for each room of that size. John Nelson, director of planning and land development, explained the original intention of this part of the plan was to limit the number of rooms that would have kitchen areas, not to limit the size of the room.

The board agreed that only if the room did possess a kitchen and was more than 1,000 square feet, it would be treated as a dwelling unit.

The final change was made to hotel or motel parking for employees to ensure there is a space for each full-time position, rather than full-time employee, as each position might have three employees who work on separate shifts.

Karen Myers of DC Development suggested the planning commission consider the same policy for restaurants, as they also are likely to have the same position, but with employees within that position on different shifts.

Ellington said that was something that would have to be done at a separate time.

“There has been a lot of hard work on (the changes),” Kevin Potter, owner of Point View Inn, said. “A lot of people put a lot of time in for Garrett County on this process.”

Contact Sarah Moses at smoses@times-news.com.