City Leaders Vote For 90–Day Moratorium

By REBECCA HAZEN
News Editor

Trenton City Commissioners voted on a 90-day moratorium regarding any future hotel and motel plans, during a special called meeting on Thursday, Aug. 26.

The moratorium, effectively immediately, prohibits the development, expansion, intensification, or establishment of any new hotel, motel, or extended-stay facility, and the issuance of any new business licenses for the operation thereof, to allow the city time to study the impact of such facilities on the city and its citizenry.

“As we learned … we have an issue that we have to define [hotel and motels] and we don’t need to be making switched decisions by every individual meeting or person that comes in. We have decided that we feel it would be best to have more time to meet,” Mayor Alex Case said.

Case continued, “There is a division of the regional commission that helps with this, and they are seeing more issues in cities and counties, and they were very glad that we are ahead of this, to try to get something in writing. They recommended this, and we talked to the city attorney as well. It is common for a city to stop things.”

Case noted that they have asked for a meeting with the regional commission, and they will continue to work on a better definition of what the city wants.

“This is going to take effect for the rest of our lives,” Case said.