GREENWOOD VILLAGE — The clock started ticking Saturday on the first local measure in Colorado to limit the length of a hotel stay.
An ordinance approved by the Greenwood Village City Council in July capping the duration of hotel and motel visits in the city to no more than 29 days is now in effect. It puts an end to a housing option relied upon by laborers hired for months-long construction projects and low-income families unable to afford the metro area’s skyrocketing rental market.
The city said the move was necessary because hotels are not equipped to operate as long-term living facilities and use of hot plates and cooking implements in rooms not wired or designed to handle such items pose a fire hazard.
But opponents of the measure say Greenwood Village’s restriction on hotel stays in the affluent city is unreasonable and unfair. Extended-stay hotels, which represent four of the city’s 13 hotels or motels, are exempt from the new law.
“I think it’s stupid,” said Ian Flowerday, a construction superintendent from Texas who has been staying at the Motel 6 at the Interstate 25 and Arapahoe Road interchange since June. “If residents are not causing trouble and they’re paying, they should be able to stay as long as they want.”
There is the potential, he said, that Greenwood Village’s ordinance could backfire and hurt the city economically.
“You get people who travel and work and who work for four months at a time and need a place to stay,” Flowerday said. “It’s going to hurt business.”
Amie Mayhew, president of the Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association, called the 29-day cap a “test case” in the state. She said her organization will be checking in with its member hotels in Greenwood Village over the next few months to see if business is substantially impacted by the new law.
“We have not seen anyone else even consider the type of ordinance Greenwood Village passed,” Mayhew said. “The city is out on its own on this one.”
City manager for Greenwood Village, Jim Sanderson, said the city has been working with long-term hotel guests to help get them into alternate accommodations. Most have moved on in the four months since the measure passed but a few have received extensions from the city to stay a little longer, a recognition of just how tight the local apartment rental scene has become.
Vacancies in metro Denver dropped to 3.9 percent in the third quarter of this year, the second-lowest recorded rate. Rents averaged $1,145 during that period, up from $1,117 in the second quarter and $1,073 in the first, according to figures released last week in the Denver Metro Area Apartment Vacancy and Rent Survey.
“We’re sensitive to helping them relocate and find permanent housing and not a hotel,” Sanderson said. “We’re listening, we’re sensitive — we know it takes time.”
The hotel operator, according to the city, is responsible for moving out long-term residents on a voluntary basis. But because Colorado law gives tenancy rights to anyone residing at one location for 30 days or more, those who refuse to leave could face eviction.
Yvette Yeon, a spokeswoman for Arapahoe County, said 10 long-term hotel residents in Greenwood Village, including two families, contacted the county seeking assistance after the city passed its ordinance. She said they received help from the Tenant-based Rental Assistance program, administered through the Aurora Housing Authority and funded by Arapahoe County.
Assistance typically comes in the form of money for the damage deposit and first month’s rent, she said.
“We were able to fund permanent housing for the next two years for the folks who called us,” Yeon said.
Greenwood Village’s ordinance contains a provision that would allow someone to stay in a hotel room for more than 29 days in a 60-day period if there is a contract between the hotel and a governmental agency or charitable organization to house families in crisis. It otherwise calls for a $499 daily fine for overstays, which mostly likely would be levied against the hotel operator but could be levied against the guest as well.
Amar Patel, a manager at Greenwood Village’s Motel 6, said his motel is down from 20 to 30 rooms used by long-term residents this past summer to just a handful now. The economy and pass-through traffic have picked up enough to offset the lost business from the steady customers he once had, he said.
Patel agrees that calling a hotel room home is not ideal, but he said the reality is with historically high apartment rents and historically low vacancy rates in the Denver area, landing a new home quickly is not always possible.
“I feel it’s better for a family of three or four to have more space but you have to understand that when a family moves into town from somewhere else, they’re not going to be able to get an apartment right away,” he said.
John Aguilar: 303-954-1695, jaguilar@denverpost.com or twitter.com/abuvthefold
