Beverly Hills Municipal Code Art. 28.6 Hotel Regulations

The purpose of this article shall include, but is not limited to, the following municipal objectives: Standards for hotel development which are sensitive to the quality of life and the character of adjacent residential zones and which distinguish between the nature of hotel related activities and those associated with general commercial development are necessary and desirable. Accordingly, appropriate procedures are hereby established whereby hotel proposals will be publicly evaluated and criteria established to assure the compatibility of hotel sites with their surrounding environment and the establishment of a limit on the number of new hotel rooms which can be developed in order to minimize potentially adverse traffic and other environmental impacts which may result from unrestricted hotel development. This article establishes zoning regulations applicable to hotel development which would require hotels to conform to the special standards and limitations of this article. (Ord. 84-O-1937, eff. 11-1-1984)

For the purposes of this article, unless otherwise apparent from the context, certain words and phrases used in this article are defined as follows:

APPURTENANT SERVICE USES: Those service uses which are customarily supplied in a hotel, or related to hotel functions, such as restaurants/bars to the extent used primarily by the hotel guests; public meeting rooms; beauty salons; shops selling such items as newspapers, magazines, toiletries, pharmaceuticals, and sundries; reservation services for automobile rentals, travel, theaters, and tour reservations; and exercise or similar healthcare facilities; provided, however, with the exception of restaurants/bars located in the triangular area bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, South Santa Monica Boulevard, and the alley between Crescent Drive and Cañon Drive, no appurtenant service use shall have any direct entry onto any street, nor shall such appurtenant service use have any display or signage of any kind which is visible from any street. Except for restaurants/bars located in the triangular area bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, South Santa Monica Boulevard, and the alley between Crescent Drive and Cañon drive, any service use which has such entry, display, or signage shall be deemed a retail store. Public assembly areas shall not constitute an appurtenant service use.

CAPACITY (Relative To Public Assembly Areas, Restaurants/Bars, Or Public Meeting Rooms Or Restaurants/Bars Designated As Appurtenant Service Uses): The maximum number of persons permitted to occupy such areas as authorized by the conditional use permit issued to the hotel. The capacity shall be conspicuously posted in each such area.

GROUND FLOOR STREET FRONTAGE: Frontage adjacent to the street level or within a vertical distance of eight feet (8') above the curb level or five feet (5') below the curb level.

GUESTROOM: A room or suite of rooms designed for occupancy as a single unit, exclusive of units designed or used for occupancy by on site management and/or maintenance personnel.

PUBLIC ASSEMBLY AREA: Any area or room without fixed seating, excluding foyers or anterooms not designed for concurrent public assembly, for routine use as a meeting place for scheduled events or functions, whether or not such room contains movable partitions. Public meeting rooms which qualify as appurtenant service uses shall be excluded from this definition.

PUBLIC MEETING ROOM: A room which cannot be expanded by movable partitions, the use of such room which is primarily by hotel guests, and the maximum capacity of such room or the aggregate capacity of rooms within any hotel does not exceed one-half (1/2) the number of guestrooms in the hotel. A public meeting room which fails to meet the criteria for appurtenant uses shall be considered a public assembly area.

RETAIL STORE: A retail facility which carries on as its principal business the selling of tangible commodities in small quantities directly to consumers and including restaurants/bars. (Ord. 84-O-1937, eff. 11-1-1984)

Any construction of a new hotel, any expansion of the building envelope of an existing hotel, any new or relocated outdoor recreation or dining facilities, any relocation of public entrances to the building or any intensification of hotel use that would allow either a greater number of guests to reside at a hotel or would allow the total capacity of function rooms or areas to increase shall require the issuance of a conditional use permit. As part of its review under this section, the decision maker may require the applicant to submit studies concerning traffic impacts, land use impacts, air quality impacts, public services impacts, shade/shadow impacts, geological impacts, or any other impact of the proposed project that may influence the determination regarding the appropriateness of issuing a conditional use permit. Furthermore, in addition to the consideration of the criteria for conditional use permits under article 38 of this chapter, the decision maker shall deny the conditional use permit if it finds that, notwithstanding the inclusion of mitigation measures as conditions of the conditional use permit, the proposed hotel use will nevertheless significantly increase traffic congestion on commercial streets during peak traffic hours or significantly increase traffic congestion on residential streets at any time. Notwithstanding this requirement, the decision maker may nevertheless grant the conditional use permit without mitigating a significant increase to traffic congestion on commercial streets or street segments devoted to commercial use if the decision maker finds that the mitigation measures identified to reduce the traffic congestion may contribute to significant environmental impacts. Where occupancy capacity is set by the conditional use permit, an annual inspection fee to reimburse the city for the additional enforcement costs shall be imposed.

Conditional use permits issued pursuant to this section shall lapse one year after the date of issuance unless physical construction of the permitted project has commenced. This period may be extended no more than two (2) times for additional one year periods. (Ord. 84-O-1937, eff. 11-1-1984; amd. Ord. 91-O-2129, eff. 11-22-1991; Ord. 91-O-2133, eff. 12-5-1991; Ord. 93-O-2180, eff. 10-29-1993; Ord. 02-O-2400, eff. 6-20-2002)

The entire ground floor street frontage of any hotel, except for such area as may be necessary for vehicle access, courtyard area, or for any pedestrian entry, shall be used exclusively for one or more of the following uses:

A. Retail store uses;

B. The replacement of existing uses to the extent otherwise permitted by this code; and

C. Pedestrian amenities, such as landscaped plazas, sculpture gardens, or other park like treatment.

Notwithstanding subsections A, B and C of this section, hotels in the vicinity of residential areas shall be designed to provide transitional compatibility with such residential environment. (Ord. 84-O-1937, eff. 11-1-1984)

The aggregate of all public meeting rooms and public assembly areas in any hotel shall not exceed:

A. A maximum of seven (7) square feet per guestroom; or

B. Such larger area as may be designated by the conditional use permit; provided, however, the total person capacity authorized by the conditional use permit shall not exceed the number of guestrooms in the hotel, and the total area shall not exceed twenty one (21) square feet per person. (Ord. 84-O-1937, eff. 11-1-1984; amd. Ord. 96-O-2264, eff. 8-16-1996)

The maximum capacity of public meeting rooms shall be determined for each hotel under the conditional use permit. The maximum capacity of public meeting rooms in any hotel shall not exceed one-half (1/2) the number of guestrooms in the hotel. The capacity of restaurants for the purposes of this section shall be based on one person for each fifteen (15) square feet, unless a greater square foot area per person is established by the conditional use permit. The maximum aggregate capacity of the combination of public meeting rooms and restaurants/bars in any hotel which may be classified as appurtenant service uses shall not exceed one-half (1/2) the number of guestrooms in the hotel. To the extent restaurants/bars do not qualify as appurtenant service uses, parking shall be provided in accordance with section 10-3-2866 of this article. (Ord. 84-O-1937, eff. 11-1-1984)

Any hotel developed under this article shall comply with the following minimum parking requirements:

A. On site parking space for hotel guestrooms as required by subsection 10-3-2730B1 of this chapter;

B. On site parking for hotel restaurant and bar uses that are open to the public shall be provided as required by subsection 10-3-2730B9 of this chapter, except that the twenty five percent (25%) credit for parking set forth in that subsection shall not apply to a hotel restaurant or bar that is open to the public;

C. On site parking space for public assembly areas as required by subsection 10-3-2730B4 of this chapter or, where public assembly capacity is established by conditional use permit, not less than one parking space for each two (2) occupants;

D. On site parking space for retail and other commercial uses as required by section 10-3-2730 of this chapter; provided, further:

1. Fifty percent (50%) of the parking furnished under subsection A of this section may be credited to the parking requirements under this subsection;

2. The parking requirements specified in this article include parking for any floor area used as an integral part of the designated use, and subsection 10-3-2730B10 of this chapter shall not be applicable to such areas;

E. One-third (1/3) of the parking spaces required by subsection A of this section shall be used exclusively for hotel employee parking, and such spaces shall be subject to the following provisions:

1. Such parking shall be furnished without charge to the employees;

2. Employee parking as designated in subsection E1 of this section may be off the site if such parking is situated within five hundred feet (500') of the hotel and the off site parking is authorized under the conditional use permit;

F. "Appurtenant service uses" as defined in this article shall be exempt from the parking requirements set forth in this section;

G. A program of validated parking for hotel and hotel related uses shall be developed by the city manager or his designee and shall be effective when approved by the council. Such validated parking program shall be phased in and uniformly applied to both existing and new hotels;

H. The required parking space requirements under this article may be satisfied by providing tandem parking spaces or compact automobile parking spaces which comply with the applicable regulations set forth in the minimum parking standards adopted pursuant to section 10-3-2727 of this chapter; provided, further, such compact spaces may not exceed twenty five percent (25%) of the required parking under this article, and such compact or tandem parking spaces shall be approved by conditional use permit in conjunction with a parking operations management program; and

I. The number of parking spaces required by this section may be reduced by not more than fifteen percent (15%) where a finding is made in approval of the conditional use permit that; because of the location of the hotel; availability of public transportation; or proximity and concentration of shopping to the hotel site, the hotel use will not generate a need for the number of parking spaces designated by this section. The provisions of section 10-3-2730 of this chapter relative to the joint use of parking facilities where one use is primarily a daytime use and the other use is primarily a nighttime use shall not be applicable to the parking required by this article. (Ord. 84-O-1937, eff. 11-1-1984; amd. Ord. 87-O-2005, eff. 10-15-1987; Ord. 96-O-2256, eff. 4-5-1996; Ord. 98-O-2304, eff. 8-7-1998; Ord. 98-O-2306, eff. 9-11-1998)

With regard to hotel facilities that do not have public assembly areas and contain less than one hundred fifty (150) guestrooms, the planning commission shall have the discretion to approve loading spaces other than as required under this chapter where a finding is made in the approval of a conditional use permit that the loading spaces proposed for the existing and/or proposed uses on the site are adequate to service the existing and/or proposed uses on the site. (Ord. 98-O-2304, eff. 8-7-1998; amd. Ord. 01-O-2389, eff. 1-10-2002)

A. In addition to the parking requirements of section 10-3-2866 of this chapter, a hotel access area shall be provided in the vicinity of the entrance to the hotel, and such area shall accommodate on site holding for not less than the following aggregate number of vehicles; provided, further, the planning commission, under the conditional use permit, may reduce such requirements up to a maximum of thirty percent (30%) if the planning commission finds that a proportional increase in the level of valet parking service is effected through the use of additional valet parking personnel:

1. Four and one-half percent (41/2%) of the parking required for the hotel guestrooms under subsection 10-3-2866A of this chapter;

2. Four and one-half percent (41/2%) of the parking required for the restaurant/bar facilities under subsection 10-3-2866B of this chapter;

3. Sixteen percent (16%) of the parking required for the public assembly areas under subsection 10-3-2866C of this chapter; and

4. One taxicab parking space for each forty (40) hotel guestrooms.

B. The traffic pattern for vehicle ingress and egress from the hotel access area to the public streets shall be designed to minimize interference with the flow of traffic on public streets, shall require the approval of the transportation/engineering official, and shall be designated in the site plan for inclusion in the conditional use permit approval process. (Ord. 84-O-1937, eff. 11-1-1984)

A. Except as otherwise provided in this article, the C-3 zone regulations shall be applicable to any hotel development under this article.

B. Hotels may not be developed on lots which abut or are separated only by an alley from the R-1 zones.

C. Hotels developed outside of that triangular area bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, South Santa Monica Boulevard, and the alley between Crescent Drive and Cañon Drive shall be restricted as follows:

1. Public assembly areas shall be prohibited.

2. The maximum capacity of any separate public meeting room shall not exceed one-third (1/3) of the number of guestrooms in the hotel.

3. The aggregate maximum capacity of all restaurants shall not exceed the number of guestrooms in the hotel, except that in commercial districts located outside of the business triangle, the aggregate maximum capacity of all restaurants shall not exceed one and one-half (1.5) times the number of guestrooms. Restaurants and dining in nonconforming hotels located in the R-4 zone shall also be subject to the provisions set forth in section 10-3-1207, "Dining In Nonconforming Hotels", of this chapter.

4. The maximum number of floors shall not exceed four (4) provided the height limitation set forth in subsection 10-3-2726A of this chapter is maintained.

D. With respect to hotel facilities located within the triangular area bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, South Santa Monica Boulevard, and the alley between Crescent Drive and Cañon Drive, the following provisions shall apply:

1. The floor area, whether permitted by the provisions of this chapter or by the provisions of prior applicable law, of a legally nonconforming hotel facility may be increased by not more than fifteen percent (15%), provided that in connection with such increase, the following conditions are satisfied:

a. At least fifteen percent (15%) of the total floor area, inclusive of the increased area, is street level retail space added to the hotel facility;

b. A finding is made in the approval of a conditional use permit that, because of the location of the hotel, the addition of the retail space will promote the retail character of the area, and will be compatible with and enhance the retail uses in the immediate vicinity by attracting and serving potential retail customers;

c. Any space added to the hotel facility in connection with such fifteen percent (15%) increase in the total floor area may include an increase in the height of the existing guestrooms so long as the existing overall height of the hotel facility is not increased; and

d. Any space added to the hotel facility in connection with such fifteen percent (15%) increase in the total floor area will not increase the number of hotel guestrooms or otherwise intensify the hotel use or substantially increase any adverse impact of the hotel use on the surrounding retail uses.

2. Notwithstanding any provision of article 33 of this chapter to the contrary, hotel uses with retail facilities in a legally nonconforming building located within the triangular area bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, South Santa Monica Boulevard, and the alley between Crescent Drive and Cañon Drive may be eligible to participate in the "in lieu parking district" as defined in said article, subject to the application and hearing procedures, review standards, appeals process, fees and fee regulations, and other restrictions set forth in sections 10-3-3307 through 10-3-3310, and 10-3-3312 through 10-3-3317 of this chapter. (Ord. 84-O-1937, eff. 11-1-1984; amd. Ord. 98-O-2304, eff. 8-7-1998; Ord. 01-O-2389, eff. 1-10-2002; Ord. 10-O-2589, eff. 10-22-2010)