Cornwall planning board asks counsel to craft conditional approval for hotel-restaurant, presses for easement and valet plan

At a Town of Cornwall Planning Board meeting, members instructed the board’s attorney to prepare a conditional final approval for Two Girls One Boy Holding Company LLC’s hotel-and-restaurant site plan, incorporating traffic consultant recommendations, easement terms for 17 adjacent spaces, and a requirement for a post-opening parking study.

The applicant’s representative said the revised plan reduces restaurant seating from 138 to 118 and adds 17 on-site spaces (from 53 to 70). “We increased the parking by 17 spots and we reduced the seating by 20,” the applicant’s representative said, noting the team now seeks roughly a 32–33% parking waiver compared with the town code requirement.

Traffic and parking consultants told the board the code requires about 102–103 spaces for the combined hotel and restaurant uses, creating a shortfall of roughly 32–33 spaces under the updated site plan. Philip, the project’s traffic engineer, said the analysis followed Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) guidance and agreed with the trip and peak estimates in the applicant’s study. He recommended the board consider valet operations to increase effective on-site capacity and asked that the board require a post-occupancy parking utilization study to reassess needs after the project opens. “If the board approves a project, one of the conditions would be valet parking,” Philip said, adding a short-term post-opening review — roughly three months after opening — would inform whether valet should continue or be adjusted.

Board members stressed that while on-street and municipal lots can provide overflow capacity at peak times, off-site availability does not automatically eliminate the need for a waiver or on-site mitigation. One member noted a nearby municipal lot (the former ambulance corps lot) appears underused and could serve as a valet staging area or overflow parking approximately 100 feet from the site.

Several members raised technical site questions. Sean and Dominic asked the applicant to update grading and drainage plans to reflect the additional impervious area from the proposed 17-space expansion; the applicant’s team said current estimates keep disturbance below the one-acre SWIP threshold but agreed to provide updated drainage information. A board member suggested a mountable curb and defined sidewalk treatment at the main entrance to separate pedestrians from travel lanes while preserving fire access; the applicant said it was a reasonable idea pending fire-department approval.

Members also discussed easement language for the adjacent parcel where the 17 spaces are proposed. The board said a recorded easement (or equivalent binding instrument) will be required to link those spaces permanently to hotel use and to assign long-term maintenance and snow-removal responsibilities to the hotel operator. Mary Beth asked that any maintenance obligations be memorialized in the chain of title for parcels under the plan; the applicant said it would accept obligations to maintain the spaces for the hotel’s benefit.

Procedurally, the board debated whether to preserve a previously granted 30% waiver or accept the applicant’s larger 32–33% request. One board member proposed that the applicant match occupancy to the existing 30% waiver rather than expand it; board members said they would draft specific resolution language to reconcile that preference with the updated submission. The board ultimately moved and approved instructions for the planning board attorney to update the conditional final approval to reflect the evening’s discussion — including consultant conditions, easement terms, valet/post-opening study parameters and the suggested mountable curbing — and to present the draft at the next meeting.

The board also approved a separate motion to enter a closed ("close") session earlier in the meeting to consult with counsel and consultants; that motion, too, was seconded and approved. The meeting concluded with a motion to adjourn.

Next steps: counsel will draft a conditional final approval consistent with the board’s direction; members indicated they expect to review the proposed language at the next planning-board meeting.