Dewey Beach To Re-Examine Timeshare Ownership In Resort

Dewey Beach may no longer welcome timeshare ownership in the resort.

Hotels and motels, too, could lose the ability to convert to condominiums.

Dewey commissioners will consider the options at a Friday meeting at 6 p.m. at the Lifesaving Station on Dagsworthy Avenue.

Commissioners normally would not try to regulate property ownership, said Dewey Mayor Courtney Riordan. But in this case, timeshare owners could tilt town elections.

Commissioner Dale Cooke proposed stopping the part-ownership setups as a way to block that possibility. A single unit's several part-owners -- a group that may spend little time and harbor no real concern for the town -- could alter elections in mobilized group efforts on certain issues, Cooke said.

That's a situation that happened a few years ago, Riordan recalled, noting the more than 100 votes from the 48-unit Royal Surf Club timeshare complex.

"Nothing but a headache and a heartache for the town of Dewey Beach," Cooke agreed.

Yet Dewey needs its nonresident voters to fairly represent a town with 1,300 properties and only about 100 voting residents, Riordan said.

Other Delaware coastal towns also let nonresidents vote, unlike most municipalities.

Letting timeshare owners cast ballots in Dewey elections, though, relies on an outdated property-based voting system, Riordan said. "One man, one vote," he added.

Both Riordan and Cooke are up for re-election of their two-year terms in September.

Commissioners at Friday's meeting will also take another stab at keeping hotels and motels from converting to condominiums, a move now blocked by a moratorium.

Cooke was part of a Town Council that in 2004 passed a law allowing such switches. Since then, four hotels and motels in town chose that option. Riordan had opposed the measure and in 2005 joined with a group of residents and two newly elected commissioners to sue the town over it.

The Chancery Court lawsuit charged that it broke Dewey's zoning rules by allowing higher density limits in the new hotel room-sized condos.

A Chancery Court judge dismissed the case, saying that the law's effects did not show harm to the town. Following that decision, Riordan proposed changing Dewey's charter to let those unhappy with town decisions petition for public votes on issues -- a topic that the council will also consider at next week's meeting.

Commissioners late last year had directed the town's Planning and Zoning commission to consider revoking the condo-conversion law.

That body disagreed, deciding to let it stand. Commissioners have since appointed several new members to the seven-member commission, after five terms expired in the spring. Let the timeshare owners vote.