2003-11-07 TCLIFTO - Laserfiche WebLink

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concept plan; and the concept plan before you is basically no different than the two other applications youÓre going to hear after this in the level of specificities. But in the DirectorÓs favorable recommendation on the Change of Zone, there were essentially like two substantive areas that we had disagreed with. One was that the DirectorÓs recommendation calls for establishing a minimum of 30,000- square foot minimum building a project can get off the ground in that area. The other one was establishing a minimum, excuse me, a maximum room count of 200 rooms for the hotel versus, like 400 as we had requested. In consideration of everything, I think that, at this point in time, the Applicant is willing to accept all of the conditions as proposed in the zone change; and pretty much I have reflected that in the, whatÓs written down as like the ApplicantÓs proposed findings. And we would also concede to the DirectorÓs original recommendation of wanting to have the first increment having a minimum of 30,000 square feet. We have, you know, weÓll make that conce But relative to the maximum 200-room count, that was not part of the DirectorÓs, you know, original recommendation; but, you know, it becomes very important from the ApplicantÓs perspective that heÓd be allowed to build up to 400 rooms. The proposals thatÓs before you call for a maximum of three small, you know, business-type of hotel. You know, itÓs something along the line like, family-oriented like maybe Pagoda, the Marriott Courtyard, the Holiday Inn Express, itÓs something along that line. ItÓs not intended to be a high-end type of hotel. And the Applicant has already had some, you know, preliminary discussions with hotel operators whoÓve kind of like indicated that they need to at least, you know, the economies of scale call for at least anywhere from about 125, 150, even if itÓs small scale. So if you limit it to that, then pretty much what youÓre limiting yourself to is just like only one hotel -. The DepartmentÓs recommendation also, you know, the reason for why they wanted to limit it to 200 rooms was, is, and IÓll just quote it, Ðbecause of the speculative nature of the market for an airport-oriented business hotel.Ñ To that, then, you know, we would just kind of say that as in all developments, you know, whether a project is economically feasible or not, you know, thatÓs the developerÓs risk. ThatÓs not the DepartmentÓs risk, thatÓs not is whether in the evaluation of, the impact of the particular project, whether thereÓs like an adequate evaluation. If youÓre doing this much, then what is the impact. And I would submit to you that the report that was prepared by the consultants, you know, it just kind of sticked by it, you know, addressed all of that impact. It didnÓt address 200 rooms, it addressed 400 rooms. You know, both from a standpoint of your economic, your marketing, your social, your infrastructure, you know, it all dealt with 400 rooms. Now if you fast-forward and then in the end like it turns out that, you know, thereÓs no hotels constructed in that area, then what you have is that basically that level of impact is reduced. So itÓs kind of like on that basis that, you know, we would submit that, you know, like allowing the Applicant the opportunity to go up to 400 rooms I think is a reasonable one and a fair one. This is what we had represented. This is what the application and its environmental assessment totally talked about. If we didnÓt talk about, you know, 400 rooms and instead we only talked about 200 and at the last minute we wanted to add like another 100 or 200 rooms, then I think there would be every reason to be concerned about whether, in fact, the assessment or the application totally addressed that type of impact. So, Madam Chair, you know, and the 8