The slow rollout of a hotel moratorium in Maine’s largest city undercut its aim of slowing new development.
Portland city councilors voted 6-2 to impose a six-month moratorium on new hotel construction in the city last November to prioritize housing projects, but the ordinance didn’t garner enough votes for it to be passed as an emergency order with immediate effect. That meant the policy wasn’t put in place for another 30 days.
In that window, two hotel developers submitted projects for approval, according to city records. One proposal was for the conversion of Portland’s iconic Time and Temperature Building into a 181-room hotel. The other, a new construction project in the Old Port, proposes a 31-story, 360-foot tall hotel with 130 rooms and 52 condos. Only nine hotel projects have been approved for development in Portland since 2019…