Big changes are coming to Metacom Avenue, and by extension, the entire Town of Warren.

That’s the idea, at least, and certainly the goal of members of the Warren Planning Board and Town Planner, Bob Rulli. They are in the midst of the process to completely overhaul the town’s Comprehensive Plan, which sets ground rules for how municipal land can be developed and identifies key priorities that should be addressed in the near and distant future.

Rulli pointed out in an interview on Monday that each municipality in Rhode Island is supposed to update their plan every 10 years. Warren last did so in 2003.

With this in mind, Rulli is thinking big, as he often does, and sees an opportunity to create a different kind of comprehensive plan that prioritizes thoughtful development of Metacom Avenue — which he views as a “spine” for the economic health of the entire area — in order to structure the frame of a long-term planning strategy that symbiotically bakes in other priorities, such as climate resiliency, affordable housing and historic preservation.

“What needs to be conveyed is that this is a corridor study,” Rulli said at the January meeting of the Planning Board. “The focus of this study is Metacom. What we’re doing on Metacom helps us preserve historic assets, [and] agricultural resources.”

A prospering, strategically-planned Metacom Avenue, he contends, is a rising tide that floats all boats.

For example, Rulli said that focusing future development efforts on Metacom will take pressure off development of the downtown, minimizing threats to historic portions of the Main and Water Street corridors. Likewise, form-based code can hold developers accountable and help create more affordable housing opportunities within a mixed-use vision for Metacom.

It can also be utilized to leverage planning strategies against the very real threat of rising tides caused by climate change that looms in the not-so-distant future. Likewise, it can be used as a platform to create a healthier environment throughout the town.

For example, the new comprehensive plan could include elements to mitigate untreated stormwater runoff into the Kickemuit River caused by overabundance of impervious concrete surfaces that currently occupies about 75 percent of Metacom Avenue. Rather than being simply aspirational, the new plan would incorporate form-based code that limits the amount of impervious surface within a new development. This kind of process would also enable the town to have control over elements such as the amount of available open space and even the aesthetic appearance of frontage for new buildings.

It would also give teeth to the conceptual ideas floated in Rulli’s other forward-thinking, grandiose planning venture — Market to Metacom — which leverages economic development along Metacom Avenue in order to implement targeted climate resiliency solutions in the area of Market Street, such as reclaiming wetlands and implementing a planned retreat of flood-prone residents out of the low-lying area.

With a new, well-defined comprehensive plan, Rulli contends, all of these aspirations can become reality.

Plan goes to State, then public gets their say
The process to overhaul the comprehensive plan is, fittingly enough, a comprehensive one. The Planning Board is set to vote on the third of three key priorities — conservation of natural resources — at their next meeting in February. They have already held meetings on proposed ideas for the first two priority elements (historic preservation and cultural resources, and recreation opportunities) during past meetings.

To assess and flesh out these priorities, the planning board has been working with Alison Ring, the town planner for New Shoreham and principal of AB Planning + Mapping, LLC. Ring has presented conceptual areas of importance, and ways to implement those priorities through actionable language within the new comprehensive plan, which the planning board has then dissected and discussed at their meetings.

Once those three priorities are finalized, they will be sent off to the Rhode Island Department of Administration’s Division of Statewide Planning in order to see if they have satisfied the requirements of a comprehensive plan and that the town is, essentially, on the right track. Ring said this process could take one or two months.

Once Statewide Planning signs off on this abbreviated portion of the plan, members of the public will have their chance to provide input on the idea as a whole. The town is required to have at least one public hearing on a proposed update to the comprehensive plan, but Rulli and planning board members said they are open to having more meetings, depending on the amount of interest.

“People with a particular interest — the Historic District Commission, the Conservation Commission, folks who are in the volunteer organizations within the town that have a specific interest — certainly these are folks that we want to hear from,” said Frederick Massie, Planning Board chairman, at the January meeting.

The Planning Board agreed with Rulli that it was important to send the preliminary segment of the plan to the state before soliciting too much input, as they want to make sure they are at least fulfilling mandated requirements with their proposal before opening the door to the public and potentially causing gridlock or confusion.

“It could be a huge waste of time to start releasing drafts and have these stakeholders or anyone else weed us down with proposed changes and what not,” said planning board member Brett Beaubien at the January meeting. “We’ll get a proposal and that’s what I think the public should be entitled to, and take their input at that point.”

Eventually, the Town Council will get the final say on whether or not to adopt the new Comprehensive Plan. They could have that vote in front of them as early as this summer or early autumn.