He's not coming. No. He's not. Yeah.
So Okay. I think we are we are up and running. Let me just let me just check. I apologize for the technical problems here. Rachel, I'm letting you talk.
Can you just say hi to us to make sure you can see us? Ray
Rachel? Yes. Everything looks good.
Okay. Thank you, Rachel. Okay. Mister chair, if you wanna go ahead and call the meeting to order, I think we can go as I'm working out the other issues here.
Thank you, Bob. We, we apologize to everyone viewing at home. We're having we had a little bit of a technical difficulty. So we are calling this meeting of the Providence City Plan Commission to order. It is 05:02PM on Tuesday, June 21.
Let's start by taking a, roll call.
Harry Belodeau. Choyan, manager card, DPD staff. And
I am Michael Gadsdaco, chair. And, we also have Bob Azar, who's, who's also staff. Thank you. We've we've Kells Kelly Morris Salvatore as well. Here, let's, let's talk about the meetings.
We have a couple of meeting minutes to, approve. Has everyone received them, read them for accuracy? Any motions to approve? Let's start with the April 12, or we could do all three together. We have, minutes from April 12 meeting, April 19 meeting, and May 17 meetings.
Seeing no edits, I'll make a motion to approve.
Okay. We have a motion by Nicole. Do we have a second? We have a second by Noel. Thank you very much.
Let's just take a a quick yay or nay. All in favor of approving the minutes from the twelfth, the April 19, and May 17, say aye. Aye. Aye. Alright.
Any opposed? Any abstentions? Alright. The meeting's passed. Director's report.
Yeah. I'll I'll give it a shot. Thank you for your patience. My my computer decided to just completely cut out, and, I had to go build for somebody else's computer from upstairs. So, this is what it's like trying to run a hybrid meeting just so everybody knows you're, not just trying to deal with what happens in the room, but you're also, you have to be a technical expert as well.
Anyway, what I did wanna talk to you about a cup couple things. We are, doing kind of a slow rollout of our comprehensive plan process. We are continuing to discuss internally, what our process is going to be. We are, already starting to make the rounds of neighborhood organizations to, to talk a little bit about what the comprehensive plan is and, what we envision, as we move forward with that with the process of amending it. And we are going to be reaching out to elected officials as well and to other city departments, and I expect to be updating you on a regular basis as to the to the status and and also, obviously, including you in the in the dialogue and the formulation of the comprehensive plan.
So stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, every so often, since 2020, 2014 when we adopted, the zoning ordinance, we have come to you and to the city council with a series of, edits. Typically, these are are technical changes and tweaks that help clarify the ordinance, and these are things that we, that have come to our attention over, over the years, over the months of of, you know, day in and day out working with the zoning ordinance, things that, aren't exactly clear, to paraphrase the Buffalo Springfield. And, you know, when when when someone comes to you with a particular situation, sometimes you think you know what the ordinance says, but sometimes it turns out that it's a little ambiguous. So so we're looking to to do a lot of clarification.
There are also a couple of things that we would consider to be policy changes. I'm gonna hand out a copy of this proposed ordinance with a little table in a minute. We're also gonna post it online, so that everybody can see what what we're talking about. We're not gonna bring it back to you for discussion until, the the meeting in in July. So we'll give you a little bit of time to talk about it.
But I just wanna mention, there are there are three, policy changes that we wanna bring forth. One of them relates to cannabis because the state has just, passed legislation, legalizing recreational, retail sales of recreational cannabis. So we wanna be ahead of the curve, and we wanna, adjust our ordinance to address retail sales of cannabis. Our proposal right now is to allow for retail sales, in the same places we allow for compassion centers and cultivation centers. So it would be more or less status quo.
My understanding of the state legislation is that, because we already accommodate compassion centers in Providence, we are obligated to also accommodate recreational retail sales. Other towns that do not have compassion centers can have a referendum as to whether they wanna do this or not. We don't have that choice. So that's one change. The other two choice changes relate to housing, and to the housing strategy that we developed in the in the past year or so.
One of those is to, adjust the regulations of our R 4 zone. You'll know having seen a bunch of zoning changes in the past several years, where developers wanna build multifamily housing at high density, and often with, with reduced parking. And the only way they can do that through a zoning change is is a change to a commercial zone, with a footnote that says only residential allowed. It's an imperfect way to to to get a a truly multifamily zone. So we're proposing to adjust the regulations for the R 4 zone in order that that that can be a much more versatile use to to achieve higher housing density when allowed by the city council.
The other one is a little bit more nuanced and complicated, but you may you may be aware that we have a provision on our zoning ordinance that says that if there are, undersized lots that are contiguous and if they're small enough and owned by the same party, they're considered merged for purposes of zoning. They exist as separate lots on the plat map, and the only way you would know that they're actually merged is if you, found section two zero three of the zoning ordinance and and follow the the rules there. It's a it it's a it this provision creates a lot of problems for the city. People sell these lots without knowing that they're merged. You have, terrible problems, when people come in to try to pull a building permit, and, they're informed by the city that they can't get a building not only can't they get a building permit, but the sale, when they bought their lot a couple of years ago from somebody, turns out that it's null and void.
So and not only that, sometimes these lots go to tax sale, and the city ends up selling tax liens on lots that should've shouldn't have been in separate ownership in the first place because of this provision and zoning. Our, solution is to eliminate this provision so these lots aren't purged. What it would mean is that we'll have a lot more very small lots, that could be developed for single family houses. That's good, in terms of housing production, but we're also a little concerned about the scale of houses that could be built on very small lots. So we're also including a provision that would limit the height of of new buildings on very small lots so that, the scale isn't overwhelming for these new developments.
So I'm gonna let that sit out there for a little while. I'm gonna I'm gonna, pass out these zoning changes. We'll post them online tomorrow so that folks can see what they are, and then we'll be back in touch with you, in July to, to review these. Okay. So I'm just gonna hand these out.
So would that automatically repeal the merging the the paper merging process if if it were passed? It that's that's correct. Okay.
So let's see. That didn't sample properly.
So Five. How's that gonna affect, from a tax point of view? If you have a if you have a merged lot, you're gonna suddenly get two tax bills?
You already get two tax tax bills. That's the confusion of it. They're not merged for assessors purposes. They're not merged on the tax map. Okay.
They're merged only by operation of law in accordance with the zoning ordinance. Okay?
So it's really clearing up. It would be. Yes.
wouldn't mind passing those around. And then we've got one two three four five six here, and then
so that's not true. I gave you can I give
you six? You can you can take another one. Okay. You need it. Okay.
So that's that's, my report for now. Okay.
Thank you, Bob. Then we will go in. If no one has questions for for Bob about that for the time being, we'll head right into the meeting, and, we'll go right into the the first, agenda item number one is 659 to 663 Admiral Street and 22 Gloucester Street. This item was noticed, but it's not going to be heard. I don't know if we wanna say anything about that.
Yeah. I could just mention that. The the notice was was faulty on this, So we informed the the applicant that that this would have to wait until another meeting. So it doesn't it it it's gonna need to be renoticed, so you don't need to continue it. But we just wanted to make sure that that folks who who, did get notice and if they showed up or if they're online, they know that this item, Admiral Street and Gloucester Street, will not be heard tonight.
Perfect. And then and then, mister chair, if I may Absolutely. Item number six, the referral for 440 And 460 Rochambeau. Mhmm. This is the, petition by, I'm sorry, the, the ordinance amendment introduced by councilwoman Anthony that would put this, largest state into the historic district that was supposed to come back to you this month.
Councilwoman Anthony sent a a message requesting that this be continued.
to be continued to a date certain, but, when whenever she wants it to come back to you, it's we'll accommodate her. Do we do we need to take action
you should take a vote to
