Zoning Board to hear proposed hotel on Waites Wharf. What's being presented.

Now possibly on the final leg of their journey, the developers for a proposed hotel on Waites Wharf are headed to the Newport Zoning Board to receive approval for their desired special use permits and variances.

It has been over five years since Harbour Realty LLC, the property owner, has filed its application to construct a hotel on Waites Wharf. Since then, the project has been revised three times, rejected by the Planning Board twice, and received backlash from Newport residents who are against the addition of another hotel on Newport’s waterfront.

While the project technically passed the Planning Board’s development plan review process, in March 2023 the Planning Board voted to submit an unfavorable recommendation against the hotel to the Zoning Board, which will review the project and decide whether to award a special permit and requested variances on Oct. 16.

The plans submitted to the Zoning Board in September are similar to those the Planning Board made its decision on back in March. The two-building hotel would have 118 rooms, 92 rooms in the North building and 26 in the South building. The four-story North building houses a 220-seat restaurant, a fitness center and a pool while the three-story South building offers two retail spaces and a ballroom for weddings. There is also a proposed coffee shop and a 27-slip marina proposed as a part of the project.

A letter from Oldport Marina, included as a part of the September 2023 Zoning Board application, suggests the hotel’s marina will be used as a stop for Newport Harbor Shuttle.

While the project looks the same on the outside, there have been some changes to the variances the developers are requesting. In a letter to the Zoning Board as a part of the revised September application, the developer’s attorney J. Russell Jackson said the project’s multiple revisions over the course of the city’s approval process have reduced the amount of relief the project needs.

Overall, the developers are asking for a special permit and two variances, as opposed to the five initially requested in 2019. The special use permit is requested because the zoning code for the Waterfront Business zone, where Waites Wharf is located, requires proposed transient guest facilities like hotels to acquire a special use permit from the Zoning Board.

Since the developers are seeking a special use permit to build a hotel, they also have to request a zoning variance to build the number of rooms they want. The zoning allows hotels with special use permits to build one guest room per 1,500 square feet, which would be about 91 rooms for this project. While the original 2019 proposal asked to build a 150-room facility, the project was reduced to 133 rooms and later down to 118 rooms. The South building, Jackson argues in his letter, meets this density requirement now.

The other variance requested allows developers to build a hotel that does not strictly adhere to the zoning code, because of the requested variance on guest room density.

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Additionally, while the city’s zoning code requires applications submitted prior to January 1, 2023 to receive an affirmative vote from four of the five Zoning Board members to be approved, Jackson argues in another letter that the RI Zoning Enabling Act, which became effective Jan. 1, 2023, states hearings conducted after the effective date only require a positive vote from three members. He said the city’s regulations which contradict this are “preempted by state law” and “completely unenforceable.”

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Waites Wharf hotel proposal goes before Newport Planning Board