Residents object to planned hotel

May 19, 2008 03:50 pm

— By Leia Jobe
reporter2@trcle.com

The Joshua City Council unanimously levied the city’s first hotel occupancy tax Thursday, but some residents are not happy about the development.
The 7 percent tax will apply to all future hotels in the city of Joshua, which is planning for its first hotel.
Many residents came to the meeting to object to the new hotel.
“We had a lot of citizens here last night,” City Secretary Mary Beth Thomas said Friday. “Most were here about the hotel zoning and not about the occupancy tax. At this point, a lot of them are not in support of the hotel’s location.”
The hotel will be developed by Nick Patel of Irving and located on 501 S. Broadway in Joshua.
Patel wanted commercial zoning for the hotel, but residents objected.
Local residents said they did not want hotel residents to look into their backyards. They were also concerned about noise from the swimming pool, privacy, fencing and security issues, Thomas said.
To compromise, the council issued a conditional use permit for the hotel, which means the hotel must comply with seven different requirements before the platting process begins.
Requirements include planning for an eight-foot privacy fence, window awnings on the east windows for privacy and restricting hotel stay time. The hotel would never be allowed to be an extended-stay facility.
“They’ll have to submit a site plan before platting,” Thomas said.
The council also adopted park and comprehensive plans and tabled a zoning request for a lot in the Cooper Valley development. One lot in the Cooper Valley planned development would be difficult to drive into because of a road median, Thomas said.