The owner and project manager of a proposed seven-unit motel on Calamar Lane on January 4 explained his shift away from long-term housing initially pitched as his project to the planning board in Woodstock. One member of the board expressed her disappointment.
“I’ve been coming to Woodstock since I was a kid,” said project manager and owner Sam Arnstein. “My grandparents were coming to Woodstock since the 1930s. So there’s a lot of family history, not physically living in Woodstock, but this was kind of our family place to go when we wanted to enjoy the great outdoors.”
The project, which pivoted to motel rooms in summer 2022, has since met resistance.
Arnstein said he and his wife “stumbled upon this property that had all these terrible house fires.” Nobody wanted to buy the properties, he added. They were on the market for 18 months.
Arnstein said spent two years and nearly $200,000 cleaning up the property.
“For a variety of reasons, the goal shifted to instead of building and living there personally, to try and to create more access in Woodstock for people to come here and be able to experience what Woodstock is about,” he said. “It’s a very popular tourist destination and had somebody not built Woodstock Inn I would never have been able to enjoy Woodstock.”
He and his wife could have just put the money in some stock market or some other investment that would have been no headaches and made more money. Ultimately the goal was for his children to take over and create a livelihood for themselves, he said.
Planning-board member Jennifer Drue said she appreciated Arnstein’s passion to do something for the community, but pointed out there was now a severe housing shortage.
“From my perspective, Woodstock is saturated with hotels, motels and Airbnbs,” Drue said. “So there’s no shortage of that. And personally, to me, it’s disappointing to see another motel happening.”
“When you came for the wetlands and watercourse [permit], we were told it was going to be long-term housing,” noted planning board vice-chair Judith Kerman.
Arnstein agreed that had been the original plan.
“Why not keep to your original plan that was presented here?” asked Drue.
Arnstein saw a greater benefit in bringing more people to Woodstock to experience Woodstock. “The market’s thoroughly flooded with that already,” Drue replied, “We have such a shortage of long-term housing right now. We don’t have ways to support the things that happen in Woodstock because there’s no housing.”
Architect Brad Will said that discussion was a topic for another day.
“I’m sorry, this is a whole ’nother conversation,” Will said. “Our firm designed affordable housing, as everybody at this table knows. There should be a lot more affordable housing in this town, and it’s not either/or. It’s and. So find sites that are more than an acre and a half that are never going to get affordable housing placed on them by anybody ever and develop them for affordable housing and build many, many more units. Do both. And there is not a lot of motel housing or hotel housing. Sixty-two units are available. Sixty-two guests. Yes, you can look it up.”
Motel is an allowed use.
Planning board chair Peter Cross brought the discussion back to a more practical level.
“From the planning board’s point of view, this project is in the hamlet commercial [district]. And therefore, commercial activities are permitted, have been permitted. There have been other hotels, movie theaters, everything else, in the area. And our job is to make sure not only that everything is done [according to] the code, but that we protect the neighbors as much as possible …. “That’s the screening, the plants you’re going to put around to protect the neighbors from excess noise or lights. That’s our purpose. You’ve done a lot toward that, like moving the fire pit away from the neighbors and screening around it. Those are the kinds of things we’re looking for.”
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