To the editor:

Three members of the Barrington Town Council appear to have driven the final nail in the coffin ending large lot open space on Nockum Hill, and perhaps throughout Barrington. Last week, councilors June Speakman, Kate Weymouth, and Michael Carroll voluntarily opted to side with HUD that Barrington should be urbanized into HUD housing standards.

By voting to provide a $125,000 HUD Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to a wealthy developer, the East Bay Community Development Corporation, the Town of Barrington has now entered into a contract with HUD mandating the adoption of HUD's housing density standards, not those of Barrington, or even the State of RI. Such standards amount to little more than a premise that if a development contains affordable housing, density concerns are not relevant. The council members knew that such contractual strings were attached to the grant, but approved the grant in spite of the potential impact to development concerns in Nockum Hill.

The background on this goes back to July, 2015 when HUD Secretary Julian Castro codified new HUD mandates against any municipality taking HUD funds after the 2015 mandates went into place. Secretary Castro made clear that any municipality taking HUD funds in the future faced legal action if they did not adopt all of HUD's new rules, which includes the goal of urbanizing all suburban neighborhoods to support HUD housing equity goals. This includes places like Nockum Hill. 

The council has in the past argued that the developer, East Bay Community Development Corporation, is a non-profit deserving of financial support from the town. Is this really the case? In December, 2008, the Barrington Town Council approved tax abatements for EBCDC’s Sweetbriar development. Three weeks later, EBCDC turned around and sold the “tax abated” land and rights to the project to a for-profit company, Sweetbriar Limited Partners. Since then, Barrington residents have subsidized the property taxes for Sweetbriar Limited Partners. 

Last year alone EBCDC reported $184,628 paid to “Interested Persons” at EBCDC from Sweetbriar Limited Partners. The 2015 total to EBCDC "interested persons" from all of their related enterprises was reported at over $1 million.

Should the Barrington Town Council have asked for more financial information from EBCDC before agreeing to urbanize the entire town under the new HUD mandates? 

I think “yes.”  

The fact that the council didn’t ask any financial questions when EBCDC pleaded poverty during the council meeting demonstrates that this deal was likely completed before the council even met. 

In a recent lawsuit brought by residents in 2010 against the Town of Barrington Assessors Office, the town solicitor argued in Superior Court that a court was the wrong place to resolve such issues, and that elections properly allowed residents to “throw the bums out” (the solicitor’s actual words, not mine).  

If you don’t agree that HUD style urbanization of all of Barrington’s neighborhoods is good for property values, or our property tax base, may I suggest the prior advice of our town solicitor. 

Gary Morse

Barrington, RI