Colbea Enterprises, LLC, the Cranston-based company seeking to develop a Seasons Corner Market, gas station and drive-through coffee shop at the corner of Souza and Main roads, is appealing the Tiverton Planning Board’s recent decision to deny its application.

The five-member Planning Board of Appeals, which met Dec. 7 to consider the appeal, voted at the conclusion of the meeting to continue the matter to Jan. 4, 2023, for further deliberations and a decision.

Appeals Board Vice Chairman David Collins explained at the start of the meeting that no new testimony would be considered. The board’s responsibility, he said, is to review existing records to determine whether the planning board made errors in the decision-making process — as spelled out in the appeal — that led to denial of the application.

The board’s packet of material included a 23-page memo plus exhibits submitted by Colbea’s legal counsel, Robert I. Stolzman. The appeals board also received an eight-page memo from Attorney Karen Benson of the citizen group Preserve Tiverton, which defended the planning board’s action.

“There is a lot to digest,” board member George Alzaibak said toward the end of the meeting.

“I’m not doing this in 20 minutes.”

During the meeting, Alzaibak questioned several times the rationale for opposing a business that is allowed by the zoning code.

“Someone has got to put something on the property,” he said. “What is acceptable?”

The planning board’s decision to deny the application was issued in late September, and followed months of meetings, including several public hearings during which community members were outspoken in their opposition to the proposed project. Common themes that emerged were the project’s perceived inconsistency with the Comprehensive Community Plan, its potential to create increased traffic congestion, the likelihood of damage to the environment, and the effects of visual and noise pollution in an area surrounded by residential dwellings.

In justifying the appeal, Stolzman said the project is consistent with the town’s Comprehensive Community Plan and its zoning ordinance and that expert testimony contradicted detractors’ claims that it would cause significant environmental damage.

In terms of traffic congestion, he said the planning board reached a conclusion that was not consistent with the findings of two expert consultants, one hired by the company and the other hired by the town.

Stolzman acknowledged the project has “engendered a lot of passion” from community members, but he characterized the comments from the public as “lay testimony,” as opposed to “probative expert testimony.”

He also referenced an associate’s comment that “everybody who has a driver’s license thinks they are an expert.”

“I’m sympathetic to the neighbors,” Stolzman said. “People move into a neighborhood and they are averse to change.”

But Benson said Preserve Tiverton's members strongly disagree with the contention that what the citizens say has no weight or merit.

Referring to testimony relating to flooding that was provided to the planning board by long-time resident Carol Hermann, Benson characterized it as “probative and compelling.”

Benson also noted that some of the engineering studies did not fully consider the impact of other development projects now underway or being planned in the near future. 

In his memo, Stolzman requests that the appeals board overturn the planning board’s decision “in its entirety” and that the application be sent back to the planning board for final disposition.