Saipan lawmakers passed yesterday a local bill rezoning from \u201cvillage commercial\u201d to \u201ctourist resort\u201d 12 lots adjacent to a new hotel that Saipan Surfrider LLC will develop at the site of the former Pacific Gardenia Hotel and the former Silver Hotel in Chalan Kanoa.<\/p>\n
Rep. Ray Tebuteb\u2019s (Ind-Saipan) House Local Bill 18-43 now goes to the governor for action.<\/p>\n
Saipan Surfrider LLC plans to develop a 60-room Surfrider Resort Spa and Beach in the area.<\/p>\n
Zoning administrator Therese T. Ogumoro answered questions of members of the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation about the proposed rezoning, prior to the voting.<\/p>\n
The two \u201cno\u201d votes were from Reps. Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan) and John Paul Sablan (Cov-Saipan), both from Precinct 2, where the hotel development is located.<\/p>\n
Demapan, in an interview after the local bill\u2019s passage, said \u201cit doesn\u2019t make sense\u201d to rezone the area to a \u201ctourist resort\u201d when there is a big hardware store and other types of businesses in the area.<\/p>\n
He said his \u201cno\u201d vote is also based on the concerns of residents in the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I would hope to happen is perhaps we should get back again and do more diligence and inquire more, and make it [local bill] a better product rather than what it is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Of the 17 Saipan delegation members who voted \u201cyes,\u201d two said they were doing so \u201cwith reservation.\u201d They were Reps. Mario Taitano (Ind-Saipan) and Christopher Leon Guerrero (Cov-Saipan). Absent were House Speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan) and Rep. Felicidad Ogumoro (R-Saipan).<\/p>\n
Triple J Enterprises earlier said the Surfrider project encompasses a total of seven separate lots, four of which are already zoned \u201ctourist resort\u201d and three are zoned \u201cvillage commercial.\u201d For consistency among all seven lots, they asked that all the lots be rezoned \u201ctourist resort.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company said consistency in zones would allow for better design integration of project components such as rooms, restaurants, parking, landscaping, swimming pool, beach club, spa, hotel gift shop, and other amenities.<\/p>\n
Confirmed<\/strong><\/p>\n In other news, the Saipan delegation confirmed by an 8-0 vote yesterday the governor\u2019s appointment of Joe Erra Ayuyu Jr. to serve on the Commonwealth Zoning Board.<\/p>\n Acting governor Jude U. Hofschneider is set to administer the oath of office to Ayuyu this afternoon on Capital Hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saipan lawmakers passed yesterday a local bill rezoning from \u201cvillage commercial\u201d to \u201ctourist resort\u201d 12…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,665],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-must-clicks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}