The Cookeville Council approved an ordinance on second and final reading Thursday that allows for the conversion of hotels and motels into multi-family housing units.
Council members ultimately voted to revert to the original version of the ordinance while adding a mandatory 90-day minimum lease term and a requirement that property owners must accept housing vouchers. Community Development Director Jon Ward said the measure is designed to address the city’s housing issue.
“The new requirement helps distinguish this adaptive residential reuse from a hotel, motel, or short-term rental operation and reinforces the units are intended to provide longer-term residential housing,” Ward said. “So, with these revisions, we strengthened the affordability component, provided a clear and more enforceable maximum allowed rent calculation, required the accepting of eligible housing vouchers, and established that 90-day lease term.”
Vice Mayor Luke Eldridge said he remained concerned that the proposed rent rates for the small units were significantly higher than the fair market value for efficiency apartments in the area.
“If the rent’s $1,400 a month and it should be $700, well, you just took care of the security deposit in the first month’s rent,” Eldridge said. “But then you’re taking care of it in the second month rent, in the third month rent, in the fourth month rent.”
The ordinance specifically targets properties in commercial industrial zones where multi-family residential development is typically prohibited. Ward said the hotel at the corner of Highway 111 and I-40 is no longer competitive in the nightly hotel market and has been utilized for years by programs like UCHRA to house people in transition.
“We are here to to create opportunities and to try to solve problems for the community, and I’m willing to take a chance on this,” Mayor Laurin Wheaton said. “We could be wrong, have I made mistakes? 100 percent. But this is one I’m willing to take a chance on to try to find a solution for a very complicated problem that no one has the answer to. Because if they did, there wouldn’t be a housing crisis, would there?”
The council also discussed the barriers many residents face when trying to secure traditional apartments, such as high security deposits and credit requirements.
The ordinance will become effective in 14 days, after which property owners can seek specific approval from the Board of Zoning Appeals to begin the conversion process.
