Town moves hospitality hearing to Dec. 23
RHINEBECK, N.Y. » Town Board members have moved a public hearing to Dec. 23 on proposed zoning amendments intended to clarify the term “bedroom” under rules governing hospitality uses of houses.
The changes were intended to be discussed Monday but revisions to a draft amendment had not been submitted by the town attorney.
“It’s really very simple,” Supervisor Elizabeth Spinzia said. “We’re just clarifying what a room is, what a guest room is, and what a lodging unit is.”
Officials began working on revisions after finding a disparity between definitions used for a room in zoning law for designations of County Inn 1, Country Inn 2, hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts businesses.
In the proposed amendment, officials wrote the definitions for hospitality uses need to be updated to provide the town Planning Board with the “exact intentions” used to describe where renters stay.
Proposed clarifications in the regulations include “bedrooms” as the portion of a dwelling unit designed to be for sleeping purposes, which may contain closets and have access to a bathroom.
Additionally, any room designated as a den, library, study, loft or extra room “will be considered to be a bedroom” when considering the number of units on residential and commercial applications.
“For the purpose of establishing and/or regulating density for... sleeping facilities a bedroom shall be defined as providing sleeping facilities for two adults.”
The term “guest room” would be considered as “interchangeable ... with ‘bedroom’” when calculating density for residential and commercial houses.
“Lodging units” would be a room that is occupied by up to two people for sleeping purposes.
“Suites” would be a “combination of rooms consisting of one or more bedrooms... attached only by way of access through a common room” and can include provisions for cooking.
“With this (proposed) law a Country Inn 2 could have an infinite number of lodging units and what we want to do is regulate bedrooms because the Board of Health grants permits based on bedrooms,” Spinzia said.