Providence City Councilor Pedro Espinal, seated center in the top row, chairs the Committee on Ordinances. Espinal first introduced an anti-pollution amendment for Providence’s port and harbor area that changed significantly by the time it reached a committee vote on Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
A Providence City Council committee voted Monday to finally approve the capital city’s 10-year roadmap for growth, which includes a stipulation allowing new gas stations to be built only on land deemed otherwise unusable for housing.
That new language in the Providence Comprehensive Plan resolves a dispute with Mayor Brett Smiley, who warned he might veto the whole plan because it included a series of “last-minute” amendments made Oct. 9 that included a proposed ban on gas stations.
The plan approved in a 4-1 vote by the council’s Ordinance Committee also included a series of amendments made in the last two weeks to a document that has been in development for about two years. Four councilors — Chair Pedro Espinal, Vice-Chair Shelley Peterson, and Councilors Mary Kay Harris and Oscar Vargas — voted in support of the amended plan. The lone no vote came from Councilor Justin Roias.
The comprehensive plan’s overall focus is on housing, with measures meant to encourage renter protections, affordable housing development and inclusionary zoning. Monday’s 90-minute meeting was the ordinance committee’s final hearing and the fifth opportunity for public input on the plan.
“The comprehensive plan prepared and presented to this Committee was already strong, from the planning department and the administration,” said the Council President Rachel Miller, who provided opening remarks for the committee meeting. “It rightly focused on increasing housing density and supply throughout the city, recognizing that the housing shortage is a key part of the crisis, but tonight you’ve got amendments before you that center the other key crisis related to housing, and that’s affordability.”
The glut of changes made at the Oct. 9 hearing — a week before what was supposed to be the final public hearing on Oct. 16 — included a proposal by Councilor John Goncalves to ban new gas stations within city limits as a means of reducing fossil fuel reliance over time. Additionally, Espinal called for anti-pollution protections for the Port of Providence and Councilor Miguel Sanchez proposed protections for encampments of unhoused people.
At an Oct. 10 press conference on a separate matter, Smiley criticized the changes coming at the eleventh hour and said some were “half-baked”
“We went through a more thorough process than anything else receives in this city,” Smiley said of the comp plan process. “The time to introduce some of these ideas was months or even years ago.”
“In terms of the entire comp plan, it’s either veto or sign,” Smiley said, and added he would wait for the City Council to finalize their amendments.
Josh Estrella, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, said Monday Smiley is now on board with the comprehensive plan as amended.
“The Mayor is proud to have collaborated and compromised with the City Council on their recently introduced amendments,” Estrella wrote in an email Monday night.
“Following two years of robust engagement with our neighbors, this plan provides a community-driven framework for how Providence can grow over the next ten years to address the housing crisis and responsibly mitigate the impacts of climate change. The Mayor is supportive of the changes made to the Comprehensive Plan this week.”
The amended comprehensive plan now goes to the full City Council during their next meeting on Thursday, Nov. 7.
A copy of Providence’s Comprehensive Plan, updated Monday ahead of an Ordinance Committee’s approval vote, lays open on a councilor’s desk after the committee meeting on Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
‘Will’ to ‘may’ to ‘shall’
City Council Chief of Staff June Rose explained that a new change Monday revised language about zoning in the city’s industrial district, which runs alongside Providence Harbor. A list of environmentally unfriendly practices was first labeled with “will prohibit,” then “may prohibit.” The amendment’s latest version uses “shall prohibit,” and changes the prohibited list’s contents.
Comments by nearly a dozen people at Monday’s hearing made clear the amended plan did not satisfy everyone. Sustainability Commission Chair Julian Drix provided a scathing rebuke of Monday’s changes — which, he offered, were not really changes at all.
Drix argued the “shall” clause was “not nearly enough, because the things that are being listed as ‘shall prohibit’ are either things that will not be expanded because there’s no place or need to expand.” Another line banning noxious chemical manufacturing would be redundant, since the zoning ordinance already disallows such practices, Drix said.
“The Sustainability Commission just met prior down the hall, immediately before this meeting, to review the proposed changes, they were modified,” Drix said. “And we are here to say that nothing has changed. It is still not enough. We need strong language. We need to say ‘will’.”
Providence’s waterfront industrial district is mostly concentrated in Wards 10 and 11 of the city, where Rhode Island Recycled Metals on Allens Avenue is located. The scrapyard was temporarily shut down after a fire in July by a Rhode Island Superior Court order.
Shortly after Drix left the podium, up came Washington Park resident Linda Perry, who painted an apocalyptic picture of what it’s like living “in the shadow of Allens Avenue” — the long, industrialized road at the edge of Providence Harbor.
“Residents have been exposed to toxic fumes…leaks, explosions and fires — Rhode Island Metals — train derailments, toxic leaks, salt spills…Fugitive rusty dust from Sims [Metal]…and many other insulting, unhealthy acts of misuse and abuse of power,” Perry said.
The approved comprehensive plan also strikes language that supported the relocation of Rhode Island Public Transit Authority’s (RIPTA) Kennedy Plaza bus hub to a yet to be determined new site. A possible site had been a 2.15-acre parcel on land freed up by the relocation of Interstate 195. The 1-195 Commission had been willing to give RIPTA exclusive rights to the land. But RIPTA’s interim director Christopher Durand issued a statement Monday saying that the bus agency is no longer considering the land as a potential site.
“We are evaluating several potential locations, with high priority given to those in close proximity to the Providence Train Station,” Durand said.
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