Syracuse Common Council approved motion for hotel occupancy tax

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) – It was a unanimous adoption of a motion that will allow for a hotel room occupancy tax by the Syracuse City Common Council. The bill was introduced in Albany by Senator Rachel May and Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli but needed the Syracuse Common Council’s approval before it could move forward.

The Syracuse Common Council approved the tax, saying that each year they face a 20-to-30-million-dollar structural deficit that they need to make up with revenue. The hotel tax money would go to a general fund where it would be invested back into the Syracuse community.

“Over the past several years we’ve increased taxes twice, we’ve increased sewer rates, water rates, and we’ve really squeezed the people,” Corey Williams, the 3rd District Councilor, said. “If we have the opportunity to generate revenue that doesn’t impact our residents then that’s something we really want to take advantage of.”

The Common Council viewed the hotel occupancy tax as a good way to generate nearly two million dollars in a manner that would limit the impact on the residents in the city.

The two percent hotel occupant tax is good for those who live in the city and will see the revenue come back to the community, but not so much for the local tourism industry where multiple hotels have recently closed or are planning to close.

“Well, the Marriott’s the biggest, and after that the Courtyard and the Residence Inn and after that it’s a pretty big drop off you know typically when we were at our peak, we were close to 3,000 rooms in the city, now it’s probably down closer to 2,200,” Danny Liedka, the President and CEO of Visit Syracuse said.

With one of the biggest concerns being not having enough hotels to host big conventions, plus the potential additional tax that could convince conventions to take their events elsewhere.

“It’s difficult, so you have to make it up in other ways with other types of business, the convention business you know certainly could suffer in the short term,” Liedka said. “I’ve said this before at the end of the day, five to six years down the road the inventory situation will correct itself but, in the meantime, we can’t really feel sorry for ourselves we need to find something else to replace it.”

Visit Syracuse is already preparing for what a hotel occupancy tax future could look like for them.

“Transportation will become something we need to provide because we bus them out a little bit further to get them out here for conventions. So, we’ve been meeting on this topic for the last six weeks but in order to try and keep that convention business at the level that it’s at or even higher it’s certainly going to take a lot of financial resources,” Liekda said.

It’s a two percent tax that will impact those who live here and those who visit.

The measure still needs to be approved by the state legislature and then signed by Governor Hochul.

Powered by News Channel 9.