Developers feel unjustly singled out. Jim Brady is trying to develop a 135-room hotel in Portland, Maine, where city leaders recently required new hotels to pay into an affordable housing fund, arguing that hospitality workers are being priced out. \u201cI recognize that you need to earn a livable wage, and there are sectors that pay lower incomes, and hotels are some of those, but so are food and beverage facilities and retailers,\u201d he says. \u201cIt just seemed unfair to say hotels were the cause of the affordable housing crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Charleston, a decades-long effort to nurture tourism without spoiling the city\u2019s 350-year-old heritage reached a boiling point recently. Former Mayor Joseph Riley presided over the \u201cHoly City\u201d for 40 years until 2016, and since then the city\u2019s politics have been rife with infighting, locals say. Mayor John Tecklenburg campaigned on a pledge to temporarily halt new hotel construction as a candidate in 2015 and continued the fight upon taking office. Members of the City Council viewed that as alarmist and pushed for less severe restrictions. Councilman Mike Seekings, who\u2019s hoping to unseat Tecklenburg in November\u2019s election, published an op-ed in Charleston\u2019s Post newspaper citing a fundraising email Tecklenburg once sent to supporters that included the line: \u201cEvery property that has the possibility of becoming a hotel will become a hotel unless we act.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n America\u2019s small cities are starting to buckle from a tourism boom. Locals are directing their anger at hotels https:\/\/t.co\/8usOoiIVy8<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Businessweek (@BW) October 16, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n