The Woodstock Zoning Board of Appeals on August 22 unanimously denied a variance request for a 15-room hotel on the site of a former Mill Hill Road garage and gas station. The developers are now rumored to plan to build it within the confines of existing zoning.
Craig Leonard, co-owner of high-end restaurants Silvia and Good Night, purchased the Woodstock Automotive property, the site until 2006 of a Mobil gas station, with his business partner Tom Pace. They had asked for a variance to use a quarter of the lot, Fifteen percent is the limit for a hotel.
This is the second time the ZBA has rejected variances for this project. In April, the board denied several variances, including for the number of rooms and the allowance of a three-story building. The present ask was for two-and-a-half stories.
ZBA chair Gordon Wemp critiqued the presentation of the size of the building.
“They kept saying it’s a ten-percent increase. It’s not a strict mathematical truth,” he said. “A 15 percent lot coverage to 25 percent of the 22,000 square feet is an over 65 percent increase from the allowable coverage.”
Fifteen percent was plus or minus 3300 square feet per floor, he said. A 65 percent increase of the allowable coverage was to him substantial.
Wemp described the proposed building footprint as a little bigger than double the size of the existing gas-station canopy. Approval would be tantamount to changing the zoning. Other property owners would ask for the same thing, he said.
“They [the developers] seemed to acknowledge that this is a big precedent,” Wemp continued. “So setting that precedent is substantial. What they’re asking for is substantial.”
By eliminating the planned cafe and store on the hotel site, the developers could fit the 15 rooms into the space allowed by zoning.
Attempts to speak to the owners after the meeting were thwarted by their attorney, Ron Pordy, who said, “No, we don’t want to talk to you.”
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