A proposed four-story, 66-room resort that will take the place of longtime downtown hangout The Press Room sparked a heated debate final week on the Planning Fee, the place the six commissioners have been break up down the center over the event, finally agreeing to kick the mission down the street till the candidates may show the resort wouldn’t have an adversarial impact on town’s housing disaster.
The resort, which is on property owned by SIMA and designed by architect Kevin Moore, was initially proposed with housing in 2020, however since then the builders pivoted to a resort mission, citing larger prices for development that will make constructing housing financially unfeasible.
Neighborhood members flooded town with public feedback after listening to The Press Room could be demolished, and the truth that town has been prioritizing housing has earned the mission a “vital outpour of opposition,” based on Commissioner Devon Wardlow.
Wardlow expressed issues over the housing disaster and was particularly disenchanted in candidates for his or her lack of engagement with the neighborhood and with the homeowners of The Press Room, saying that there was “no engagement” and that the builders deliberate on doing outreach after the mission was authorized.
“There’s two points proper there: This doesn’t create housing, and this displaces a tenant that has overwhelming help from our neighborhood,” Wardlow stated
Vice Chair John Baucke agreed, even taking it a step additional and suggesting town rethink bringing again the resort moratorium or require all new accommodations to get a conditional-use allow moderately than permitting them by proper.
However Commissioners Sheila Lodge and Lesley Wiscomb have been in favor of transferring the mission forward extra rapidly, fearing that the fee was forcing candidates to return for evaluations, at their price, far too usually.
Wiscomb stated she didn’t need it to be “all about The Press Room,” whose homeowners had signed an settlement to relocate, and that town “gained’t get any reasonably priced housing” at that location.
“What’s finished with The Press Room is completed, and that’s a non-public settlement,” she stated.
After a break up vote on a movement that will have required the candidates to come back again after “vital public outreach,” the commissioner agreed in a 5-1 vote, with Wiscomb opposed, to return to a later date with a full fee of seven members.
