City opposes Plaza Hotel plans

This article in the Sarasota Herald Tribune is one of the things I find confusing with our political / regulatory system. If the rules say you can build a "box" so big and it can be a hotel -- then a "person" (aka "evil, greedy developer") says ok I am going to build the box that size why do we need to worry about things like this... using the box for a 173 room hotel seems like it was "allowable" -- maybe not liked by some of the neighbors but "legal" -- so now why does it matter how those rooms would be used / owned? This seems like a "political" decision.

I can't see any way that timeshare "owners" with 2 week slots is "worse" than hotel stays. In some ways I see it as better, in that people are repeat visitors to our area. Seems the anti - density folks have another one..

Joe Moraca

By Roger Drouin
Published Saturday, June 28, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.

SARASOTA — The city ruled Friday that a time-share hotel-apartment building proposed in the Burns Square area is not a hotel after all, so developer Al Hochstadt will likely have to come up with something else to build there.
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If it were a hotel, the developer could have built 173 rooms in a five-story building.
But all that would change if the project is composed of time-share units, or spaces reserved for multiple owners for two-week periods.
Under one scenario, the city code would allow only 28 units on the land.
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