"Plans call for three-stories and 45 rooms, with a first-floor footprint of approximately 9,400 square feet. For comparison, the average B&B in America is six rooms and totals 5,700 square feet, according to the Association of Lodging Professionals."
"Once you are set up to rent more than 8 beds, (16 people), then the occupancy changes from the B&B classification of Rooming & Lodging to Hotel. Hotel use has more stringent requirements than does Rooming & Lodging."
Often savvy, if unscrupulous, developers push the limits of the law. Bad projects spotlight the flaws and unintended consequences of bad regulations. As has happened here. The latest addition to Coston's - "local boy makes a few dollars" hardy har har - real estate holdings may result in a rewrite of Bar Harbor's regulations (which may not comply with state law, do not comply with B&B precedence, and which defy common sense and civic mindedness.)
The Cottage Street site could have been better used for an affordable multifamily dwelling.
My apologies to Mr. Paradis for associating him with the Cottage Street 45 room B&B boondoggle. Of course it should have been Stephen Coston, along with Brian Shaw and Tom St. Germain.
The 45 room Coston Paradis Hotel, which cronyism designated a B&B, stands as a monument to Bar Harbor Town Council corruption. And not satisfied with how much they can personally profiteer from the town, the hoteliers now want to appropriate to their own use, high value Cottage Street space designated for metered parking. Because ... why not? Doesn't government exist to shovel public resources into the private nosebags and corporate troughs of the unconscionably greedy? It has in Bar Harbor. Can the preposterous B&B designation be declared null and void? Is there some other way for the town to claw back what it's corrupt elected officials have given away? We need a new Town Council to even give it a thought.
"Plans call for three-stories and 45 rooms, with a first-floor footprint of approximately 9,400 square feet. For comparison, the average B&B in America is six rooms and totals 5,700 square feet, according to the Association of Lodging Professionals."
https://www.mdislander.com/news/residents-question-b-b-regulations/article_01675190-a198-11ed-9bce-f32216925ba3.html
"Once you are set up to rent more than 8 beds, (16 people), then the occupancy changes from the B&B classification of Rooming & Lodging to Hotel. Hotel use has more stringent requirements than does Rooming & Lodging."
http://www.maine.gov/dps/fmo/plans-review/bbrequirements
Often savvy, if unscrupulous, developers push the limits of the law. Bad projects spotlight the flaws and unintended consequences of bad regulations. As has happened here. The latest addition to Coston's - "local boy makes a few dollars" hardy har har - real estate holdings may result in a rewrite of Bar Harbor's regulations (which may not comply with state law, do not comply with B&B precedence, and which defy common sense and civic mindedness.)
The Cottage Street site could have been better used for an affordable multifamily dwelling.
My apologies to Mr. Paradis for associating him with the Cottage Street 45 room B&B boondoggle. Of course it should have been Stephen Coston, along with Brian Shaw and Tom St. Germain.
The 45 room Coston Paradis Hotel, which cronyism designated a B&B, stands as a monument to Bar Harbor Town Council corruption. And not satisfied with how much they can personally profiteer from the town, the hoteliers now want to appropriate to their own use, high value Cottage Street space designated for metered parking. Because ... why not? Doesn't government exist to shovel public resources into the private nosebags and corporate troughs of the unconscionably greedy? It has in Bar Harbor. Can the preposterous B&B designation be declared null and void? Is there some other way for the town to claw back what it's corrupt elected officials have given away? We need a new Town Council to even give it a thought.