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A Lewes couple has requested to rezone a downtown Rehoboth Beach guesthouse that sits in a residential district.
Dr. John and Sue DiBonaventure, principal owners of The Gladstone Inn, 3 Olive Ave., wish to change the zoning from general residential to central commercial so they can upgrade the property, which sits a few yards off the Boardwalk, across the street from the Boardwalk Plaza hotel.
The couple plans to create fewer apartments and update the interior design. In addition, they would like to excavate underneath the house to create more parking.
“There’s only three parking spaces for a property with five units,” she said. “It makes it hard to run a business that way.”
If the plans were approved, said Sue DiBonaventure, it would decrease both pedestrian and vehicular street traffic on the street.
The Gladstone Inn now contains four apartments in a nine-bedroom house, with a total of five units on the property.
During the season, said DiBonaventure, a two-bedroom apartment rents for $1,000 per week and the house leases for about $3,500.
Eventually, she would like to have a four-bedroom house with only two apartments, a total of three units.
“The building has been here for over 50 years. It’s a former bed-and-breakfast – it was a commercial business,” she said.
“We’re looking into making some of the rooms and apartments less dense with an updated interior, but decrease the number of units. We want to decrease the density, but perhaps, get a higher paying clientele,” she said.
The couple is represented by Vincent Robertson, an attorney with Griffith & Hackett, LLP of Lewes.
Robertson approached commissioners at the Jan. 17 meeting to determine the appropriate route to pursue the request.
“Mainly the purpose of last night was to see what paths we have to follow because it’s not detailed in the city’s code,” Robertson said.
“I’m going to talk to the city’s attorney to determine what path to follow,” he said.
According to the city’s comprehensive development plan, any rezoning must be approved at the state level. All rezoning also requires a public hearing.
“My concern, at this point, is that the property owner is at least entitled to a public hearing,” said Robertson.
Stan Mills, a Rehoboth Beach resident who lives on Maryland Avenue said, “It was rental guest rooms and apartments – not quite a bed-and-breakfast, which are not allowed in residential areas.”
Rehoboth Commissioner Ron Paterson said any rezoning would not entail spot zoning either.
Rather, he suggested, rezoning may extend an existing commercial district.
But, he cautioned that a commercial-zone property is not required to have the 6-foot side yard and 10-foot front and rear setbacks required in residential zones.
DiBonaventure said she has no plans to raise the building, but only wants to improve what it is already there while maintaining the character of the building.
“We live right here. We want it to be nice, but it’s been a problem with nowhere to park cars,” DiBonaventure said.
“The big thing is maintaining Rehoboth the way it was,” she said. “It’s a big, old beach house.”
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