Great Barrington — Although town voters at the 2008 town meeting approved a 45-room limit on hotels, the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), by a 4-1 vote on Wednesday (September 9), granted a permit to allow the 58-room Holiday Inn Express on 415 Stockbridge Road to add 20 more rooms and a third floor. The ZBA determined that since the hotel was built in 2001 before the limit was created, the expansion would not be “substantially more detrimental” than what currently exists.
The hotel is one of three in town with such status, and the hotel’s owner, Navin Shah of KSNS Stockbridge Road Realty Trust, was told by InterContinental Hotels Group last year that in order to “relicense” his franchise, he must add a third floor.
“This is an exciting time for the Holiday Inn Express brand, and we need to be consistent across the estate and have all our franchises on board as we continually strive to meet consumer demand in the new millennium,” wrote Gregory Fox, IHG’s Regional Director, in a letter to Shah.
Shah’s attorney, C. Nicholas Arienti, told the ZBA that heart of the issue rests with the possibility of Shah losing a busy franchise with a “high occupancy rate,” and along with it scores of Holiday Inn rewards customers with whom he has built loyalty.
“Money and blood, sweat and tears over the last 14 years to make this hotel work,” Arienti said.
He said a third floor will also provide room below for expansion downstairs to hold larger groups and events and bring more tourist dollars and revenue to the town.
Arienti said the third floor must be built by the end of 2017. But Fox’s letter did not give such a timeline, and representatives from IHG, including Fox, did not return calls or emails to confirm it.
Traffic and other studies showed minimal impact from the expansion in what is mostly a commercial and industrial area, a zoning hodge-podge. The Conservation Commission issued a go-ahead — with certain conditions — for extra parking that backs up into a wetland area near the Housatonic River. The parking lot, for instance, will be made of pervious pavement, to soak up, clean and slow storm water outpour into the river.
The Selectboard made a positive recommendation for the project, with one dissent, but the Planning Board was split down the middle, so sent its comments for and against in lieu of a recommendation.
The ZBA’s test for expansion of grandfathered property, given the room limit bylaw, was whether a third floor would be “substantially more detrimental” according to a list of criteria, than what already exists.
Shah’s architect used a current photo and rendering of the expanded hotel to show the Board how a third floor might affect the view from the road, and indeed, it didn’t show much difference.
ZBA Secretary Bernard Drew read from a pile of supportive letters from the owners of nearby businesses including Café Adam, The Brewery and Haven Café.
“If they were changing the footprint, that would be more substantially detrimental,” said ZBA Vice Chair Carolyn Ivory.
Some of the objections centered on what some considered abandonment of voter will, despite the legality of the expansion loophole.
“The Town Meeting vote said that this is, in effect, detrimental,” said ZBA member Michael Wise, who cast the only vote against. While he said the designers “have done a good job,” he felt that the “magnitude” of the expansion was significant when weighed against the intent of the bylaw.
“Voters knew that larger hotels mean more tax money; still, they voted for this,” said Selectboard member Ed Abrahams, who had voted against recommending the expansion. Abrahams said that the benefits of extra rooms are not a “good enough reason” to go against voters’ wishes to keep chain hotels out.
The town, said Bola Granola owner Michelle Miller, should not be “subject to the ultimatums of corporations,” especially “so close to the Housatonic River, causing a degradation of our already compromised neighborhood.”
Gaeton Lachance owns The Barrington bed and breakfast downtown. He wondered if the expansion would “cannibalize” customers from other hotels, rather than pull in new visitors.
The criticism wasn’t enough to sink the project, but a procedural error could render the ZBA’s ruling open to attack (though the Attorney General’s Office did not return calls Thursday to confirm it.) After Chairman Ron Majdalany closed the public hearing, he allowed attorney Arienti to respond extensively to several board members’ comments during their discussion. When Lachance asked to speak again, Majdalany told him the public hearing was closed.
“Unless you’re a lawyer,” said the NEWSletter’s Eileen Mooney, speaking from the audience.
