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Town of Clinton board to draft ban on new hospitality venues pending comprehensive plan after months of public outcry
Summary
Residents urged the board to tighten or repeal zoning that allows hotels, motels and conference centers; the town board directed its attorney to prepare a draft local law that would prohibit new hospitality venues until a new comprehensive plan is adopted.
The Town of Clinton heard sustained public pressure on Oct. 14 over laws that allow hotels, motels and conference centers, and the board agreed to work with its attorney to draft a local law to prohibit new hospitality venues until the town adopts a new comprehensive plan.
Residents said the town’s existing conference-center rules—adopted in 2021—contain broad language that can be read to permit resort hotels. “The conference center law contained insufficient guardrails and an expansion rather than a tightening of the definition,” said Dan Berndt, who urged the board to “retract or rewrite law consistent with the comprehensive plan” to strengthen legal defenses against anticipated lawsuits.
Speakers pointing to long-running controversy asked the board to avoid project-specific carve-outs and to apply any new restriction to all future projects. “They can repeal the conference center law,” Graham Trask said, urging the board to act because, he said, “this board has consistently ignored the conference center situation in the town of Clinton.”
Board members discussed legal constraints and the moratorium passed in July, which the supervisor said runs for six months and excludes projects already in process. Board members flagged two principal choices for any draft law: make it prospective only or attempt to apply it retroactively to projects without vested rights. The chair said legal counsel advised that the three applications currently in process are excluded from the moratorium but noted the board can revisit that approach when drafting a new law.
“By July, if there is not a new law in place or a new comprehensive plan in place... the law defaults back to where it is today,” the chair said, explaining that the proposed local law would supersede the moratorium if enacted. The board concluded there is public consensus to proceed with language and asked staff and the town attorney to prepare a resolution for introduction at the November meeting.
Next steps: the board will present a draft resolution in November and hold the required public hearings before adopting any ban. The board emphasized the drafting will examine whether any new law can or should apply to projects that already have applications in process.
