Letter: Water Street development is not exempt from zoning

Posted 12/28/22

To the editor:

Many thanks to Warren Voluntary Historic District commissioners who reached out to preservationists around the state for expert perspective on the proposed development at 113/119 …

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Letter: Water Street development is not exempt from zoning

Posted

To the editor:

Many thanks to Warren Voluntary Historic District commissioners who reached out to preservationists around the state for expert perspective on the proposed development at 113/119 Water Street.

Of particular note: Valerie Talmage, Executive Director of Preserve RI, represents the state’s affordable housing statute quite differently from how it has been represented in Warren’s Planning meetings and characterized in the press. 

The Warren community has been told repeatedly that local planning and zoning rules (parking, height, density, permeability, design, etc) are, by state law, outweighed by the inclusion of affordable units. In effect, conveying a message of “our hands our tied.” (See EastBay RI articles from Oct. 24, Oct. 26, and Dec. 7, 2022).

Not so, according to Preserve RI’s leader. The Planning Commission not only can observe local zoning and planning rules, it must. What it must NOT do is reject affordable housing when all other local planning and zoning concerns have been satisfied. According to Preserve RI:

"The project, even though it is [in small part] for affordable housing, must conform to local planning and zoning rules: The state’s affordable housing statute clearly places the burden on the applicant to demonstrate that the project meets local planning and zoning requirements. In this case, however, it seems that the project is being presented with the implication that somehow because the project includes affordable housing, the proposal does not have to conform to local planning and zoning. That’s not the way the state’s affordable housing law works: the state law provides an appeal to the state’s affordable housing review board when projects that are consistent with local zoning and planning have been unfairly denied or conditioned. All local zoning and planning rules apply – the law simply requires that they are applied fairly and evenly. In other words, the law mandates that Warren’s decision-making will be just as even and fair to an affordable housing project as to a proposal for luxury housing."  

By this interpretation, the law does not hand a developer a trump card simply for including a few nominally affordable units, and, contrary to repeated public messaging, it does not obligate the town to compromise local zoning and planning requirements.

Hadley Arnold
21 Lyndon Street

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