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Council approves tourism‑zone ordinance to help downtown and visitor‑facing businesses
Summary
The Winchester City Council on June 23 approved O‑2026‑22, establishing a tourism zone chapter to align city neighborhood design districts with tools meant to support tourism‑oriented businesses, after a brief staff presentation and an uncontested vote.
Winchester — The City Council unanimously approved O‑2026‑22 on June 23, enacting chapter 8.2 of the city code to create tourism zones that mirror neighborhood design districts and give the city additional tools to support tourism‑oriented businesses.
Jeff Buettner, EDA executive director, told council the ordinance ‘‘creates tourism zones within the city of Winchester that mirror the neighborhood design districts and give us more tools in our toolbox to help those businesses that are tourism specific in nature’’ and answered council questions about its intent and scope.
The measure was moved, seconded and adopted on a roll call with councilors recorded as voting yes. Council President Sullivan opened and closed the public hearing after no residents sought to speak.
The ordinance is intended to provide an extra set of policy tools for downtown and other areas that benefit from visitor traffic; council and staff did not identify changes to existing property rights or an immediate program of expenditures tied to the ordinance. The action was described as a code‑level framework; any programs that use the new zoning tool would be developed separately.
Council’s approval clears the way for staff and the Economic Development Authority to begin work under the new code section and consider how the tourism zone designation can be paired with local initiatives to support small, visitor‑facing businesses. The council did not attach additional conditions or amendments at second reading.
The city clerk recorded the ordinance passage on the June 23 minutes. No further public hearings on this ordinance were announced at the meeting.
