Local hotel and inn owners have begun to look at turning rental rooms into condominiums, and the town of Scarborough is now considering changes to its ordinances that would restrict what the business owners could do with their properties.

The word for the trend, which has already occurred in other states but has yet to change the face of most Maine hotels, is “condominiumize.”

“It’s happening all over the place,” said Peter Truman, the owner of the Lighthouse Inn, who has been trying to get approval to sell off portions of his hotel at Pine Point for several years.

To get the maximum value out of their properties, motel owners all over the country are selling individual rooms, turning their establishments into condominiums. Last week, the Scarborough Town Council held a first reading for a new ordinance that would clarify what Truman and others would be allowed to do with their businesses.

According to Greg Dugal, executive director of the Maine Innkeepers Association, the trend is “very prevalent” in other states, and particularly in Cape Cod.

“More people are thinking about it,” Dugal said of the trend coming to Maine, where, he said, it was more in the conversation stage than the conversion stage.

But there have been indications that the idea of selling at least portions of inn property is taking hold here. Last August, the Scarborough Planning Board approved a request from the Black Point Inn to reduce the size of the inn and sell land around the historic inn on Prouts Neck for 13 house lots.

David Aranovich, owner of the Dunes Motel on East Grand Avenue in Scaborough, said he is looking at all his options for the future of his property.

“I’m hoping to develop the property as condominiums,” he said, but he is not set on it yet. He’s waiting to hear what the town will and will not allow him to do.

At the Scarborough Town Council Meeting on March 7, Town Manager Ron Owens said there have been “more and more inquiries about this kind of conversion,” which is why the town has begun to hash out the fine points of regulations that are already in place, but are still open to interpretation.

“It’s not a bright line in the sand,” Owens said.

Owens said he believes the trend can be attributed to a decreased interest in the “family business” aspect of running a motel or inn. He said that if owners getting older and looking to retire have no one to pass their businesses to, then they are going to try to get as much money out of the property as they can.

Truman, however, said he has no plans to retire. He hopes the additional money he makes from selling the rooms will help pay for some rennovations.

“It’s a wonderful way to do capital improvements,” Dugal said.

The proposed Scarborough ordinance specifically applies to hotels, motels and inns that are located in non-conforming zones, which means the businesses were in place before zones were created and were allowed to stay, even though their use did not conform to the regulations of the zone.

The Lighthouse Inn is located in a residential zone, and homeowners there are concerned that condominiums in the area would not be “consistent with the character of the neighborhood,” according to John Thurlow, one of the leaders of the Pine Point Residents Group.

“There would be a lot of issues,” Thurlow said of the change.

Scaborough Code Enforcement Officer David Grysk and Owens pointed out some of the issues that would come along with condominiums, including increased traffic, lack of parking and the added burden to town police and fire services.

About two years ago, Truman and his brother, Nicholas, the co-owner of the Lighthouse Inn, went to the planning board to try to get approval for the conversion of his motel into six condos, a project that would have included adding a third story to the building in order to make room for garages underneath the condos. The planning board tabled the request twice in order to get more information, including input from the community. Before the planning board had its final vote, the Truman brothers backed out of the project.

Now, Peter Truman believes he can go through with a new approach without having to go to the board. His plan is to sell some of the individual rooms, but keep the majority of them for himself and continue running the Lighthouse Inn as a motel.

“It’s just a change in ownership,” Truman said. “It’s not a change in use.”

If Truman plans on operating the Lighthouse Inn exactly as it has been running, he will not have to go to the planning board.

And that’s where the ordinance comes in.

According to Owens, the town needs a document to spell out what the restrictions would be in order to make sure the business is still running as a motel, and the rooms are not being used as residences for the individual owners. Some examples of restrictions are maintaining a management desk and having a central phone system. However, these details are still under discussion and are likely to be debated by business owners like Truman.

“We may end up in court about this,” Owens said, due to the interpretative nature of the regulations in place.

Truman, however, thinks his concept for the Lighthouse Inn is a simple one. “They’re trying to make this more complicated than what it is,” he said.

Grysk is working to interpret the regulations that are currently in place in order to clarify the proposed ordinance for a public hearing at the next town council meeting on March 21.

“It’s not an easy situation,” Grysk said of his work.

“It’s kind of a dance we’re all going through right now,” said Owens.

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