Meeting Date: April 14, 2016

DIRECTORS REPORT
To:

Municipal Planning Commission

From: Ronald M. Traub, Director, Economic & Community Development

Re: Permitted Hotel Uses
With the increased popularity of extended stay hotels, the Administration is desirous of
regulating such uses due to public safety concerns. Devices such as hot plates or more
extensive cooking devices can pose a fire hazard, these operations can harbor criminal
activities, and they pose challenges to the school district and complications from a zoning
perspective.
Currently, the Mentor Code of Ordinances has no definitions for either hotel or
motel. The State licenses three types of hotels: (i) transient, (ii) residential, and (iii)
extended stay, based primarily upon the room features. The most notable difference is
whether the rooms are equipped for non-transient housing, primarily meaning in-room
food preparation facilities.
Use of the generic terms hotel and motel is not sufficient to regulate the specific type
of hotel permitted in a given district. The first step is, therefore, to add definitions to the
Code. The following definitions are derived from State statute (R.C. 3731.01) so that
the Code is in harmony with exactly what the State is licensing:
1127.01 Definitions.
(xx) "Bed and breakfast" means an owner-occupied, single-family detached
residential structure with less than six sleeping rooms that is kept, used,
maintained, advertised, or held out to the public as a place where, for any form of
compensation, sleeping rooms are offered on a transient basis only, and, which
further provides common space for the use and enjoyment of its guests.
(xx) "Hotel, extended stay" means any structure consisting of one or more
buildings, with more than five dwelling units, and to which the following apply:
(i) the dwelling units in the structure are constructed, kept, used, maintained,
advertised, or held out to the public to be a place where temporary residence is
offered for any form of consideration to persons and (ii) the dwelling units have
features for non-transient residence purposes.

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(xx) "Hotel, other" includes any structure consisting of one or more buildings
containing any combination of more than five guestrooms that are each approved
as meeting the requirements for transient sleeping rooms or extended stay
temporary residence dwelling units, or as having features of such sleeping rooms
and dwelling units within the same room, and such structure is constructed, kept,
used, maintained, advertised, or held out to the public to be a place where
transient sleeping accommodations or temporary residence is offered for any form
of consideration to persons, but such structure does not otherwise meet the
definition of an extended stay hotel, residential hotel, or transient hotel as defined
in this ordinance.
(xx) "Hotel, residential" means any structure or structures consisting of one or
more buildings, with more than five dwelling units, that are constructed as having
both dwelling unit features for non-transient residence purposes and all of the
transient residential occupancy features of a transient hotel and that are kept, used,
maintained, advertised, operated as, or held out to the public to be a place where
non-transient dwelling units are offered for pay to persons for a minimum stay of
more than thirty days.
(xx) "Hotel, transient" means any structure consisting of one or more buildings,
with more than five sleeping rooms, that is constructed, kept, used, maintained,
advertised, or held out to the public to be a place where sleeping accommodations
are offered for any form of consideration to transient guests for a period of thirty
days or less, including, but not limited to, a structure denoted as a hotel, motel,
motor hotel, lodge, motor lodge, bed and breakfast, or inn.
(xx) "Single room occupancy (SRO) basis" means one occupant per room.
(xx) "Single room occupancy (SRO) facility" means a facility with more than five
sleeping rooms that is kept, used, maintained, advertised, or held out to the public
as a place where sleeping rooms are offered on a single room occupancy (SRO)
basis and that is intended for use as a primary residence for residential guests for a
period of more than thirty days.
(xx) Temporary residence means a dwelling unit accommodation room within a
hotel that is used by its occupants but is not used as the permanent or principal
residence of its occupants.
(xx) "Transient" means not more than thirty days.

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To change Mentors Code, references to hotel and motel in 1155.01 will have to be
stricken with more precise definitions, as per the following examples:
(j)

Commercial Recreation - C-2

(5)

(l)

General Business - B-2

(9)

(m)

Motels Hotel, transient

Interchange Service Districts - B-3

(1)

(o)

Hotels and motels Hotel, transient, as accessory to other permitted uses

Motels Hotel, transient

Light Manufacturing - M-1

(15)

Hotels and motels Hotel, transient

-- Old Village - OV
(16) Hotel, inn, bed-and-breakfast and any similar places of overnight
accommodation all only upon issuance of a conditional use permit
Hotel, transient (only upon issuance of a conditional use permit)
Bed-and-Breakfast (only upon issuance of a conditional use permit)
Legal Counsel has noted it would be ideal if the Code were structured in a more precise
manner to unambiguously convey exactly what type of use(s) within a broader industry
classification are permitted, to the exclusion of others. It may be advisable to add
additional prefatory language in Chapter 1155 to make it clear that where the Code
specifies such sub-types of uses as permitted, then, it shall mean that other sub-types are
not permitted.

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