[Summit] FW: Comprehensive Plan slated to go before Providence City Council Nov. 1

[Greg Gerritt]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Christopher D. Hunter" <chunter at advocacysolutionsllc.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:44:32 -0400
To: Chris Hunter <chunter at advocacysolutionsllc.com>
Subject: Comprehensive Plan slated to go before Providence City Council Nov.
1

http://www.projo.com/ri/providence/content/MC_COMPREHENSIVE_10-23-07_G27J88P
.35e08a4.html

Comprehensive Plan slated to go before Providence City Council Nov. 1
01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, October 23, 2007
By Daniel Barbarisi

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE ‹ The city's new Comprehensive Plan has received the approval of
the City Council's Ordinance Committee, which added a series of protections
designed to ensure that passing the document doesn't lead to major zoning
changes for at least a few years.

The plan will go before the full council Nov. 1.

But a coalition of industrial businesses on the Providence waterfront
already say that their livelihoods are seriously threatened by the document
the committee approved last night, and that the protections the council
added don't go nearly far enough.

"We look at it as the first nail in the coffin," said Joel Cohen, vice
president of Promet Marine Services, an Allens Avenue shipyard.

The plan's approval process is structured in stages: this fall, the city
intends to approve an interim Comprehensive Plan that would make major
changes to the city's overarching planning goals, and then each neighborhood
would be examined in detail over the next two years. When the neighborhood
reviews are completed in 2009, the city would revise the Comprehensive Plan,
and make zoning changes in the individual neighborhoods.

But both the waterfront businesses and a coalition of neighborhood groups
want the council to hold back on approving the plan until the two-year
process of in-depth neighborhood planning meetings is complete.

They worry that the neighborhoods will get short shrift if the majority of
the document is approved now and amended later.

While the committee approval makes it likely that the full council will
approve the document, the committee built in a slate of modifications that
should ensure that no major neighborhood zoning changes will be enacted
until the neighborhood planning process is complete. The other major point
of contention has been the future of the industrial businesses on Allens
Avenue. 

The plan's land-use map envisions the industrial areas north of Thurbers
Avenue as being mixed-use in the future, with residential and commercial
development coexisting alongside the current uses ‹ an asphalt plant, a
shipyard, and a heating oil distributor among them.

But while protections were added to preserve the Allens Avenue industrial
businesses, the businesses themselves say they do not feel they will be at
all effective. 

Sections were added to the plan defending the right of the heavy industrial
businesses to exist, and stating "residents understand that such businesses
are encouraged in this area and any noise, odors, vibrations, etc. generated
by the businesses shall not be deemed a nuisance to any resident."

Promet's Joel Cohen called those sections "ludicrous," saying that they
provide no real protection. As long as it is included in the plan that
residential development is allowed, then that language will make it easier
for residential development to enter the industrial zone.

Even if the zoning changes don't come for two more years, he said, "A
developer can go in with a request for a variance and it's going to be
easier for them to get it" with the residential language included in the
plan. 

And as soon as there are residential uses, Cohen said, that will lead to the
eventual demise of industry in the area.

David Riley, of Friends of India Point Park, has been pressing the council
to include protections to defend the Fox Point waterfront from high-rise
development. His group got some of what it asked for in the most recent
round of changes, in language stating that building height and density and
the character of the surrounding neighborhood are to be factored into
planning decisions.

"It's definitely getting better, there's definitely some changes relating to
our concerns," he said. "It's not perfect, but it's better."

The Olneyville Neighborhood Association's Norman Ospina took issue with
language promoting "mixed-income development in economically distressed
areas," fearing that it would lead to gentrification and the displacement of
existing residents.

The process has bred some unlikely allies. Late last week, a coalition of
nine groups including neighborhood associations from West Broadway,
Olneyville, College Hill, Mount Hope and Summit, the Allens Avenue
industrial businesses, the social activist groups Rhode Island Jobs with
Justice and Direct Action for Rights and Equality, and the Mount Hope
Neighborhood Land Trust all signed on to a letter urging the council to hold
off on approval.



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