The New Shoreham Planning Board is looking at ways to accommodate a perennial need on the island: seasonal employee housing. One problem that the Planning Board is working on is the lack of clearly defined regulations for seasonal employee housing.Town Planner Allison Ring explained that since there was no definition of seasonal employee housing in the zoning regulations, the town has been allowing applicants to use the definition of “inn.” An inn is defined as “a building or building complex containing three to ten rooms or suites for rent. Each unit must have access from an inside lobby and be without individual cooking facilities.”
While this arrangement of calling employee housing an inn has allowed businesses to build and remodel existing housing units, Ring told the board, there was a “need to allow seasonal housing as a permitted use.”
Two recent applications before the Planning Board involved employee housing at the Block Island Beach Club and the Overlook building which is used by Ballard’s for employee housing. Both applications referred to the housing units as an “inn.”Chair Margie Comings said that for its part, the board had included language in its decisions on recent projects stipulating that the
