Jud Kurlanchhek, Director of the Building, Zoning & Planning Department, told Carter McDowell, attorney for the Sonesta-Fortune Partnership, that he would not recomend Council to accept future owners of condo-hotel units to occupy their property. While the director agrees with the concept of a condo-hotel as a form of ownership, the use of the units, even in a transitory manner, will be restricted to non-owners.

This issue arises because of the stated proposal by the applicant that the hotel rooms will be occupied by the owner(s) (for some unspecified period) for their own private use. After an exhaustive examination of the applicable provisions of the code and the information provided by you, we are writing to advise you that if the proposed site plan is approved by the Village Council, the Village Administration intends to strictly enforce the use and occupancy limitations within the Village Zoning Code including a prohibition on the private occupancy of hotel rooms by the owner(s). It is my administrative decision and interpretation that the sleeping accommodations within the hotel must be offered to the “public” on a short-term or transient basis and the hotel rooms must be occupied by “transients” who rent the rooms on a day-to-day, week-to-week or month-to-month basis. Owner occupancy directly conflicts with each of these limitations and will not be permitted. As part of the upcoming public hearing, we will recommend a condition on any site plan approval that expressly prohibits private occupancy by the owner(s).

URI: Key Biscayne News and Rumors

Mr. Kurlanchhek does have a point and condo hotel really is a conflicting term. A typical condominium is out for someone to live in while a hotel is where one would like to stay for a limited time while on a convention, vacation and whatnot. But the thing that seperates the typical condominium and hotel from a condo hotel is that its flexibility. Condo hotels allow people with no fame or that much fortune to actually own a piece of a five-star hotel, live in it for sometime and get some additional income while not in it so that the public would be able to make use of it. Maybe Mr. Kurlanchhek is just afraid that at some point, the owner of the hotel room would never leave their room beause of all the perks that they would get to enjoy there, but I believe he misses the point.

Condo hotel became so popular because of the notion of having an investment, a fabulous place to live in (for a limited time within a year or month) and an income all in one piece of property. Why would anyone want to abandon that because they want to live in a hotel? Of course there may be people like that, but it will all boil down on the contract signed by the individual and the condo hotel developer. We can not tell people that they will not be able to use a property they have paid a lot for, I believe that would be quite unfair. However, we can say in the contract that they will have this set of number of days when they could stay at their hotel rooms. Perhaps that 30 days within a year, or 15, depends on what the developer and condo hotel unit owner agrees on. The bottom line is, the charm of condo hotel is the owner being able to stay there, take it away and we might see a downfall (for a lack of better term) in the sales of condo hotels.

What is your take in the matter?

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