Ketchum Planning and Zoning Commission should stick to its knitting when it comes to hotel projects.
Its should evaluate the quality of hotel designs and determine whether hotels meet city ordinances. Period.
Instead, the P&Z is exploring areas the Idaho Legislature never contemplated when it approved the Idaho Planning Act.
For example, when the P&Z looked at the proposed Ketchum Lodge this week, Chairwoman Annie Corrock opined that the hotel should not include a small, high-end deli because the city has enough delis.
In other discussions, the P&Z fretted over the likelihood that new hotels may hire people away from existing businesses.
The P&Z has also asked developers to assure the city a new hotel will not fail and to outline a plan just in case failure occurs. The P&Z worries that the city may grant concessions—heights greater than three or four stories, for example—that it cannot take back if a hotel fails.
Will the city want to pick out the wallpaper next? All of these are market issues over which the city does not, and should not, have control.
The city should not be in the business of determining if it has too many or too few restaurants, retailers or Realtors.
Instead of worrying about a hotel's effect on the labor supply, it should address the dearth of workforce housing.
It should not demand guarantees of success—or impose penalties for failure—from people already betting millions on success.
The city has plenty to do without trying to micromanage businesses it knows nothing about.
