The new owners of the former Woodstock Automotive at 39 Mill Hill Road got considerable criticism and few kudos last week for their plans to build a three-story hotel and cafe on the site of the former gas station. The ZBA held a public hearing for variances for the project.
Three-story structures are not permitted in Woodstock, though some are grandfathered.
Partner Craig Leonard said that while he seeks to exceed the two-story limit, the project will not exceed the 35-foot height limit set by zoning.
Another variance is needed because the special-use permit required for the footprint of hotels is limited to 15 percent of the lot. This project wants to use 25 percent.
“We’re not looking to build something higher than anything else allowable in the hamlet, but we are looking to have a third floor on the structure instead of the two-and-a-half floors that is allowed in Woodstock. And basically, it wouldn’t necessarily be a full third floor,” Leonard explained. “The reason we’re asking for this is, it would just give us far more options in a design arena to be able to build something that’s more interesting. It would give us some more square footage. And it’s no more than what you see at the structure that the Garden Cafe in town is in.”
Aside from the Reformed Church steeple, the tallest structure in the hamlet is Colony Woodstock, which predated modern zoning when it was built in 1929.
Another variance has to do with the density of rooms. Leonard said current regulations allow for one room per 1500 square feet of lot size, which would only allow for 14 rooms.
“We’re also hoping that the 19 rooms, just to put it out there, will alleviate some of the dependence on STRs [short-term rentals]. If there’s more hotel rooms in town, we think there’ll be less of a need for STRs,” Leonard argued. “I have friends who come to visit, they’re always having a hard time finding a hotel room, and they have to rent a whole house. And that’s not what everybody’s always looking to do.”
Leonard touted the addition of 25 to 40 new jobs in town on top of the 80 to 100 employed at Silvia and Good Night, the two restaurants in which he is a partner.
Leonard dispelled rumors this project will be affiliated with the two eateries.
“This is a partnership between myself and Tom [Pace] ,” Leonard said. “We’ve known each other many years. Tom has lived here for ten years. We’re in the community. Our kids go to school here. We love Woodstock, and we just want to make it want to add something to the community that we feel people would like.”
Why did he need more than the already allowable number of rooms?
“To be honest, it’s a very difficult undertaking, and this is a large financial expenditure to do something like this,” Leonard responded. “We will have to borrow money from the bank, and that bank has to be paid back. And we have to pay employees as well as we can. We just did the math, and really, anything less than 19 rooms makes it extremely tight and very difficult.”
Helen DeVoe’s family lives behind the parcel where there’s a big height dropoff. She’s concerned about lack of privacy from the higher-elevation hotel looking down at their family property.
“We just really feel that with three stories you’re going to have a hotel looking down in the whole back yard,” DeVoe said. “There’s like no privacy at all, if they do three stories. Two stories I can see, but the house there is only one-and-a-half stories. The second house where my daughter is, that’s only one story with the basement underneath,”
Karin Flores Reininger, who lives at 11 Mowers Lane, said her home was on a one-lane road. It sometimes takes ten minutes to pull out in the summer because of traffic, she said. “Clearly, anybody who’s familiar with our hamlet is aware that 40 guests, 100 diners, is ludicrous.” she said.
If her house hosts a couple of guests, they have to juggle cars to fit them in. “How are you going to park for a hotel? Why would we want to? How does this serve our community?” she queried. “It’s hard to move around now, especially in the summer.”
Herwood Inn owner Adam Wolbarst said this proposed to hotel would add to competition.
“In terms of the conditions of the hotel market in this area, it’s extraordinarily challenging to run a profitable business here,” he said. “Because of the high cost of living here, we have to pay people an extraordinary amount of wages in order for them to come into town. Utilities have been going up through the roof ten to 20 percent every year. The cost of customer acquisition, through marketing, through paying Expedia their increasing fees, trying to get people to fill those rooms is extremely expensive. We have a high cost of financing. Our mortgage is tremendous.”
Angela Spinelli, who owns Caffe, also noted how difficult it was to hire and keep employees. “It is very hard to find people and be able to pay them a wage such that they actually live here. Most of them can’t. Most of my employees drive in from Kingston and Saugerties where they still live at home with their parents. So the notion of bringing jobs to the area … We’re bringing jobs into the heart of Woodstock, but they’re for people that don’t live in this area,” Spinelli said.
Claudia Gorelick said one of the things she liked about Woodstock was its restrictive building regulations. Said she, “I think my concern is having this amount of traffic in the middle of town. It is concerning to me because there is a high turnover, obviously, with a hotel. So you’re looking at a minimum of 30 to 40 cars a day coming in one, essentially in two streets. And that’s a lot.”
Rebecca Turmo of Elwyn Drive was the only person who spoke in favor of the project.
“If somebody has a better idea for that property, maybe they should have bought it and maybe they should come up with a plan,” Turmo said. “This project sounds bigger to people than in reality it actually is. I’m not opposed to it. I do take issue that some kind of remediation probably needs to be done as far as parking.”
The property is on the main street of Woodstock. She looks at the people coming on and off the bus every day. “We have a tremendous amount of them. They are coming without their cars. It would be easier for people who come up from New York City to shop if they could stay overnight,” Turmo said. “But it also possibly takes away from the Airbnb extravaganza that we have with people that don’t live in Woodstock buying houses being absentee landlords having hotel rooms basically in residential neighborhoods. So I consider that a plus.”
The ZBA has two months to render a decision.
The proposal also needs planning-board review. Operating a hotel requires a special-use permit.
Join the family! 
