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Council to weigh plan for bed and breakfasts
By D.A. WILKINSON
SALEM
A proposed ordinance to allow bed and breakfasts in parts of the city finally will go to city council next week, said Steve Andres, the city’s service director.
He’s also a member of the planning commission, which has been working on the issue.
There are no bed and breakfasts in the city. About half of the city is zoned for single-family residences, neighborhoods where bed and breakfasts would not be allowed. There are parts of the city now that can become sites for bed and breakfasts. Those are areas zoned for and used for multifamily housing, he said.
The proposal to allow bed and breakfasts started last year and then did not progress.
Andres said one of his issues with the ordinance was whether the adjoining property owners of a proposed bed and breakfast had a veto power over the decision to permit such a facility.
The planning and zoning commission recently met with the board of zoning appeals to make the proposal clear. Now, a request for a bed and breakfast would go before the board of zoning appeals, which would get input from neighbors before acting on whether to issuing a permit.