It was an unexpectedly rather light agenda for the Warren Planning Board during its regularly scheduled monthly meeting held Monday night, Nov. 25.

The members, as well as many interested community members who filtered in and quickly out of the proceedings, anticipated an in-depth discussion on the "Settlers Green" project the housing development planned over 16 acres near Frerichs Farm and the Warren Reservoir.

However, as told to the board by Associate Town Solicitor Benjamin Ferreira, the owner/applicant, Last Ever Realty, LLC., only a few days prior to the meeting submitted a letter to the town requesting the continuance.

"The Settlers Green applicant had not filled out the appropriate paperwork prior to this meeting and so we will not be hearing that application at this meeting," Planning Board Chair Fred Massie told the audience at the launch of the November 25 forum.

"I'm sorry that wasn't clear, but this was somewhat of a last minute adjustment," Massie added, apologetically, to those seated in the audience.

The chair said the next likely appearance of the Settlers Green item on the board's agenda, including a public hearing, would be either in December or January.

The proposal to build 12 single-family homes, along with two, four-story apartment buildings with 54 units each of the one and two-bedroom variety has long been controversial.

The Planning Board incarnation of 2021 denied the initial master plan back in February of that year, but that decision was later overruled by the former State Housing Appeals Board (SHAB) in June of 2023 under the auspices of the state's comprehensive permitting guidelines, which allow for developers to bypass certain local legislative avenues if they agree to offer 25 percent of the units as "affordable" as defined by the state’s affordable housing law. An appeal by the town was then denied in Rhode Island Superior Court earlier in 2024.

"It limits the process. The idea being they're (the General Assembly) looking for affordable housing in the state and we (the Town of Warren) have not reached the state's 10 percent (affordable housing measure) and as a consequence we have to hear this particular application when it does eventually come through," Massie explained last month.

He continued, "Within the preliminary plan there are opportunities for negotiation in terms of what is being presented and conditions that can be placed upon it. And/or it can be approved or denied outright. So those are the three outcomes potentially available here."

Broken bridge connector
The rest of the roughly 35-minute meeting was spent discussing other existing and proposed matters.

Massie mentioned correspondence sent to the Town Council reminding the body it needed to come up with a plan to connect the new Broken Bridge extension with the East Bay Bike Path.

Massie said the west end of the span, from Long Lane to the Kickemuit River, must meet the path, which was "a very important element" to the town receiving grant money for the project through the Rhode Island Department of Transportation's "Safe Routes to School" program.

More school notes
Massie also mentioned the proposal in the works from the Bristol Warren Regional School District to reconfigure the parking lots in town at Kickemuit Middle School and Hugh Cole Elementary School.

Massie said he has reviewed the proposals and made on-site visits with Brian Wheeler, Warren's Department of Public Works director.

Questions have been raised about drainage at the locations along with the recently upgraded playground at Cole. The chair said Wheeler wondered where does school district's responsibility end and town's begin, especially in terms of the drainage matter.

The Planning Board approved the district's master plans for the project at its October meeting. Massie said the items will be discussed in greater detail when the district submits a preliminary plan, which is is now expected to be sometime in the early part of 2025.

Comp plan notes
The updated Warren Town Comprehensive Plan was broached briefly, Massie informing the members the revised document received approval from the Council earlier in November via 3-2 count.

Massie said "the sticking point" for the two votes against was word voluntary being removed from the language in the revised voluntary historic district section.

"The argument is that by taking out the word 'voluntary' it makes it mandatory and I pointed out the fact mandatory does not appear anywhere in our comprehensive plan for the historic district," Massie said.

"Somehow this became a choke point for some of the folks there," the chair added.

As for eventual approval by the state, Massie said, "I'm cautiously optimistic that because they’ve seen every element that was within the comprehensive plan prior to us putting it all together that we would be in a place where acceptance of that would most likely occur. And if if didn't I don't imagine it would be anything but small revisions that could be done fairly quickly."

Next meeting
The next meeting of the Planning Board is set for Monday, Dec. 16, in the Town Hall chamber at 6:30 p.m.