Is Homeless Home
Hotel Or Shelter?
Reject It, Richfield ZBA Advised,
As 250 Attend Tonight’s Hearing
By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
RICHFIELD SPRINGS – When is a hotel a hotel, or a homeless shelter?
That was the question this evening as 250 neighbors in Otsego County’s third largest community gathered to express their dismay about the feared fate of the former Mielnicki’s Restaurant, 155 Lake St., abandoned for more than a decade.
At issue was a proposal by James L. Bent Jr. of Mayfield, Fulton County, to turn the restaurant into a 14-room “hotel” which, he said in an interview earlier this week, would serve Dreams Park families for 13 weeks in the summer, and house homeless people referred there by the Otsego County Department of Social Services the rest of the time. Bent’s permit was approved, but is under challenge by a neighbor, Barbara Wahl Shypski.
Attended by 250 people, the village Zoning Board of Appeals hearing was generally calm, although speakers were rewarded with applause, challenges were occasionally shouted out from the crowd, and ZBA Chairman Bob Hazleton at one point was drawn in to a back-and-forth with attendees over a procedural matter.
