Mike's on, please. Harry, you wanna turn on your mic?
Alright. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We're gonna call this meeting of the city plan commission to order. This is a Tuesday, 01/24/2023 meeting, their first meeting of 2023, and we're gonna call this meeting to order at 04:47PM. We'll start off with a roll call.
Start with Noel. Noel Sanchez.
Miguel Cassava. How are Adelardo?
Shayan, manager of Cardi B and B staff.
Bob Ezar, staff. Lisa Ginerman, legal counsel. And I'm Michael Gadsdako, chair. We will move directly on to the approval of the minutes from the December 13 meeting. I hope you all received them and reviewed them prior.
I'd like to say, Choi An did a very good job of capturing the minutes in that meeting. That was a difficult one to transcribe.
I make a motion to approve the, excellent meeting minutes of 12/13/2022.
I second. Alright. We have a motion on the table. Go around. Just do a aye, yay, or nay voice vote.
All in favor? Yea. Yay. Alright. Abstention for myself.
I'm sorry. We have an abstention.
You don't have to abstain if you weren't there. I know it's it's technical, but approval of minutes is really a very technical thing. And unless someone objects to what's in it, you don't even really technically need a motion to approve and and votes on it unless someone objects. So you can still vote for it if as long as you've got three votes in favor
of We have three votes in favor. So yeah. Your reference. Wondering.
Alright. Maybe we can't comment on whether it's excellent or not?
You may say it's excellent, mister Bill Dew.
Want to change something, you can also move to chancellor. Okay. Thank you. Alright.
hand it over to to Bob Azar for the other two items of the opening session before we kick off this meeting. Okay. So, you have election of officers next. And I would just like to say on behalf of the staff, we've been very pleased with the officers that have been in place for the past year. That is Michael Gastako, chair, Nicole Verdi as vice chair, and Harry Billodeau as secretary.
If someone were so inclined to move that slate, we would be grateful. Or or if someone has other options for nominations, now is the time.
So I I move make a motion for the slate presented. K. I have a motion.
have a second? Alright. We'll go around and and take a vote. Noel? Aye.
Miguel? Aye. Harry? Aye. And I'll vote aye.
I guess that does it. Alright. Now we'll move we'll move on to the director's report.
Alright. Not a whole lot to talk about other than here we are in 2023, and things have changed a little bit upstairs in the planning department as as you all might know. I wanna publicly acknowledge the great work of the outgoing director, Bonnie Nickerson. She was a colleague of mine for over twenty years. We worked we worked very closely together on all sorts of things.
So I just wanna say for the record how much I appreciate everything she's done, and I wish her well. I have been appointed acting director of the department and will remain in this position until a new director is identified. That position has been posted. I'm still gonna be here at at CPC, still continuing, to do this job, for the foreseeable future. We are, actively briefing the mayor on all the things that are happening in the department, and that's gonna take a while.
You know, every every every project we're working on requires a briefing, and and there are very many of those. I have already been talking to him about the work of this commission and and and how how impressed we are with with what you have done and, you know, the the the way that that you comport yourself. Also, I've made it clear to him that the comprehensive plan is a major initiative that is gonna bear his mark. This is gonna be a signature project for, the beginning of his administration, the first two years of his administration, and CPC will be, of course, taking a a major role in that. We have sketched out a, we've already been engaged in a community process.
It's been more or less informal to date, but, we have sketched out a a process that will
that we we would like to put in front of
the mayor and and hopefully get his endorsement and and his input, so that we can make make this much more of a a formal process going forward. Another thing I'd like to add is that, there were a series of zoning changes that came to you in the last year, changes that that we had put forth coming out of planning and zoning. Happy to say that those changes have been approved by the city council. We think that it'll go a long way towards making the ordinance more consistent. It'll make it easier to process applications in the building department, and there are a couple of items in there that are significant when it comes to the ability to create more housing.
So we look forward to to seeing how how that goes. And as always, we're gonna be monitoring the the ordinance to see how it works. We think that the development review regulations that that you adopt that govern how you review land development projects and subdivision are due for a bit of a reboot. So that's something that we're gonna be working on in the coming months, and we'll, we'll start to brief you on that as well. Something else to to consider, is that the general assembly, has they've they've appointed a land use commission.
They've also appointed a housing commission. These two bodies are evaluating the state laws that apply to affordable housing, to zoning, subdivision, and comprehensive planning. Those committees have been meeting on a regular basis for the last several months. My understanding is that they're gonna be coming out with some recommendations this month, maybe or maybe early next month, related to how the state law should be changed. We have a staff member who sits on the housing commission.
I have, briefed the land use commission on on issues in Providence. I've also been in touch with with, various members of that commission, and, we hope that that the things that are that are important to Providence are are included in those changes. I think they will be. I think our input was was heard, and I think, we'll have some influence over that. Ultimately, that could change what has to be in our zoning ordinance and in our development review regulations.
So we're eyeing that as well. So lots on the horizon. I think I think we're excited to continue the work, and thank you, for your continued, participation. Just one question on that. The land use committee, their findings are supposed to be out in short order.
So is it something that the general assembly might take up this coming session? I believe so. Yeah. My understanding is that they may have some bills to consider in the in the coming weeks. Okay.
to know. Keep an eye on that. Anything else before we we jump into the agenda? Nope. Alright.
Then, we will we will roll right into the, the first agenda item, which is a major land development project. It is a public hearing for case Number 22 Dash 033 M A, 116 Waterman Street. The applicant is Walter Barnard and Brook Holding LLC. Well, he's attorney Garrett. He's the attorney representing.
Joyon, do you wanna, or is it I'll
get I'll get a brief introduction to this one. So this is something you've, you've seen before. They came in this is a major land development project. They came in, at master plan, and you approved the master plan. However, you did defer action on, two discretionary items, one being the additional story of heights and the second one being the design waiver, for the frontage along Brook Street where the zoning ordinance says that no residential is allowed within 20 feet of the main street.
For this particular project, Waterman Street and Brook Street are considered main streets. This sits at the corner of both. They don't need the waiver for the Waterman Street frontage because they have a commercial storefront that actually wraps around a little bit of the the Brook Street frontage, but they do need the waiver for the balance of the Brook Street frontage that has residential, on the Ground Floor. They are here at preliminary plan. There were two, conditions of master plan approval.
One is that they have a meeting with the community, and two is that they enhance the landscaping along Brook Street. They have checked both of those boxes. So with that, I think we're ready to turn it over to attorney Garahee, and I will bring up Kasali here on the screen so you can share the plans.
Attorney Garahee, take it away.
Mister Chairman, members of the commission, John Garahee, on behalf of the applicant with respect to this project. Let me say, if you may recall, this this application was before you for master plan.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Was before you for master plan in July. And as Bob indicated, the the the two conditions were, at that time, additional landscaping. Commissioner Bellevue had required additional landscaping, and then there was more meetings with the community.
As Bob indicated, we've met both of those requirements, and the presentation that's gonna be made, you'll see with respect to landscaping, first of all, that, you know, 900 square feet of landscaping is required for this project. And as I told the College Hill Neighborhood Association, our direction was to put as much landscaping on this project as possible. So 900 is was required. We have 7,000 square feet of landscaping on the project. 900 required, 7,000 providers.
