North Fork Chamber letter calls for end of hotel moratorium

In their first action of the fall, the North Fork Chamber of Commerce sent a letter Sept. 9 to the Southold Town Board and Supervisor Al Krupski, calling for them to “end the moratorium on the development of new hotels.” President Judy McCleery and board member Eric Dantes signed the letter.

The Town Board voted May 28 to extend its moratorium on hotel, motel and resort development for another 12 months. The moratorium was first unanimously approved in June 2024 after the Suffolk County Planning Commission recommended a six-month pause.

“When the moratorium was approved … the town board represented that the town planning board would present an actionable plan to streamline the hotel/transient rental permitting process,” the letter states. “As of today, the planning board has not presented a plan. The current moratorium discriminates against the next generation of entrepreneurs and does not provide any benefit for the people of Southold.”

The town’s draft code allows hotels in and near hamlet centers but with stricter limits on size. Hotels would be capped at one room for every 8,000 square feet of net lot area, with a larger minimum lot size also required. For example, a hotel on a 40,000-square-foot lot could have a maximum of five rooms. The full draft of the comprehensive zoning update is available at southoldzoningupdate.com.

In the Rural Business II Zone — which is currently called the Limited Business Zone — hotel use would be replaced by “country inns” under the draft code. The inns would be limited to 10 guest rooms with a maximum of 20 occupants and would require the reuse of existing buildings along Route 25 or County Route 48. In the Marine II zoning district, the draft code would add a 30-room cap on hotels “to limit impacts to the environmentally sensitive shoreline.”

The law extending the moratorium says the Town Board determined more time is needed to finish zoning updates to ensure “proper alignment with the Southold Town Comprehensive Plan, environmental constraints and density regulations.” It also says “without an extension of the moratorium, new large-scale development may proceed before necessary amendments to Southold’s zoning legislation are completed, potentially undermining the town’s long-term planning objectives.”

The letter states that the lack of hotel availability in the area has led to more illegal Airbnb rentals throughout Southold Town. It claims that the landlords of the bed and breakfasts “do not apply for rental permits, nor do they subject the properties to basic safety inspections.” It also states that chamber members believe the illegal rentals do not bring in support for local businesses. “The development of safe, inspected, local hotels will help the town combat the illegal transient rentals and help keep our community safe. The new hotels will also refer business to our already established businesses.”

The chamber says that for locals on the North Fork to survive, “the North Fork needs to enter its next phase of business development. Change is difficult, but with globalization, the rise of e-commerce, and the development of artificial intelligence and robotic technology, the world is changing and has been changing for a long time. The North Fork will change regardless of any decision the town board makes. If the town board chooses to keep the moratorium and spurn future local business development there will not be a next generation of locals on the North Fork.

“Southold Town needs strong leadership now more than ever and the business community needs the town board to fight for a strong local business-friendly future.”

Mr. Krupski said he always encourages the chamber to be involved in local matters such as this. He did say, though, that the letter fails to mention that, within the moratorium, there is a waiver provision so that someone can appeal to the board to get out of the moratorium. “If someone is, in fact, interested in pursuing a hotel application, there is a process in place,” he said.

He also said the town board just sent the short-term rental code draft to the code committee, so that should be considered sooner rather than later.