Alright. Good afternoon. We'll call this regular meeting of the Providence City Plan Commission to order. Today is Tuesday, March 24. It is 04:46PM.
Start by taking a roll call. Noel Sanchez.
How are you doing, though? Nicole Bernie.
staff, and Michael Gestako chair. We'll go right into the approval of events from the 02/21/2023 meeting. Hope we've all received them in advance for use them, new edits, suggestions, motion to approve. I motioned on. We have a motion on the table.
Go around and do a voice vote. Noel? Aye. Harrison? Aye.
Nicole? Aye. And I wanna. Right along. Okay.
Just a couple things to report. First of all, there's a new planning director in town. His name is Joe Mulligan. He's sitting in the back of the room. He's waving to us.
Hello, Joe. Welcome. He's here to check up on me. Get your he's just observing. Joe's been on the job about two and a half weeks now and learning how we do it in Providence.
We also have a new economic development director by the name of Cassandra Thomas
of structure over here is kinda filling out. We hope to also have a new director of inspection and standards in in coming weeks. And finally, the last thing I I wanted to mention is that today is the last time our esteemed legal counsel will will be with us at at the city plan commission. Lisa Dennerman is retiring in April mid April. And so I would just like to personally congratulate her, thank her for all that she's done.
Even though she's she's been legal counsel for you for not too long since Kelly Morris moved on, she has worked on behalf of other boards and commissions in the city and also has been very active defending you both at the in superior court and also defending the city and and taking cases to superior court as well as supreme court. She has always been a great partner for me when it comes to understanding what what the law is and how it works with regard to zoning and land use. And when it comes to, you know, making zoning amendments, she's always been help helpful in that process, and and she has helped to sort of steer our boards and divisions in such a way that that that we get an awful lot done, but we do it in such a way that it stays within within the law and really helps to to, you know, create predictable processes and and so forth. I'd also like to say that, you know, I consider this a friend, and I'm gonna miss her.
just want to echo everything that Baba said, and I've had the opportunity to work with Lisa when I was in the private sector and then on the board as well. And not only is she and has been an excellent attorney, but she's also been a mentor to so many, especially women in the legal profession. And it's definite I know she will continue for a mentorship in her retirement, but has made such an impact not only from a from legal perspective, but also on a kind of personal perspective with so many different folks in the legal community and even in, you know, beyond. So just so incredibly appreciative to know you and really excited for your retirement and just wanna be incredibly grateful. That's what we think.
Absolutely. Yes. Wonderful. I I agree. I echo the sentiment with everyone here.
I know that this is only a small, very, very minute portion, but for for our board, we've used steps. Yes, sir. Anything else from you? Nope. That's it.
Alright. Then with that, we do have a business to attend to this evening. So we'll start with agenda item number one, which is city council referral. It's referral number 3539 is the abandonment portion of Swan Street. Is the applicant here and
Sure. We have AJ Coletta who's who's on Zoom, who's who's coming in right now. By the way, you may wanted to note for the pub for the public that item number four, the Johnson and Wales institutional master plan amendment will not be heard tonight, and that that will be heard in May tentatively. You don't have to take an official action. Okay?
So if you're here for the Johnson and Wales agenda item number four is continued at the request of the applicant. Again, not next month, but May, it should be back. So with that, we will we will jump into agenda item number one. Go ahead, Bob. Okay.
Yeah. This is the abandonment of a a a portion of Swan Street. This will sound familiar to you because you have previously approved an abandonment of a longer portion of Swan Street between the interstate highway and the edge of property that's owned by AJ Coletta. Since that happened, he has purchased a house that he has spoken of previously adjacent to this property. It's been kind of a problem property, and it occupies the North Side Of Swan Street.
And he owns property on the South Side Of Swan Street that that that includes all of the frontage how should I describe this? The the it it it it it occupies the same width of or the same length of Swan Street as this piece of property. We call it lot I'm sorry. It looks like Lot Lot 120. AJ is gonna give us little bit more information.
But as you can see, it's it's about maybe 40 feet wide by by the width of the street. So it's just a small portion here. Goleta owns property on both side of sides of it. So maybe AJ can kinda fill us in a
more. I don't know if you wanna bring this up on the screen, or or I could try to do it as well.
Sure. If you want to give me sharing rights, I I could be happy to show you that. Correct.
Yeah. Go ahead and do that.
Okay. Let's see. Please let me know if you are able to see this.
Okay. Great. Great. This just came in from Brad at Waterman Engineering, our surveyor. And as Bob mentioned, this portion here, we did abandon, so it goes down.
Let me just zoom out a little bit here. It terminates at 95, and the new portion that we're looking at is right here. Let me just zoom into that, right in front of the house. So in December, we purchased the house at 02:09 Swan Street, relocated the tenants. We are in the process of getting our demolition permit, but we are looking to, abandon this small portion and make sure I'm in the right area.
This I'm sorry. You look I you're looking the other way now, but this is actually the portion of it. The house is right here. This is that area that's 40 by 50, but you can see it here. You can see the utilities and that kind of thing.
So it's really small. We own both sides of the street that's here, and this is part of our development of the campus for the Swan Business Park. And I sent Choyan and Lev and Bob the final approvals from the DEM, from DPW, and mister Elton stating that everything has been approved for our plans. And this is just an addition to the campus, this little portion that we're looking to abandon. And, this is this is the area, the actual area.
It's right here. Very, very small.
AJ, is this the the house that we've heard so much about over the past few years of the the troublesome house that you had adjacent to your your development?
Yes. Yes. And I'll I'll yes. That's it. That's exactly correct.
Yes. There's there's more that I could share, but at this point, I'd I'd rather not. There's a lot more I could share, but that's exactly right. Yes. You're correct.
Wonderful. Commissioners, do you have any questions for the applicant?
No? No. Okay. Anything else, AJ, or can we turn it over to public comment?
No. We're we're I'm good here. Thank you.
Okay. Alright. Bob, do you wanna read the staff report, then we'll we'll open up public comment? Sure.
Okay. As a as an abandonment, this is a recommendation to the city council, and the city plan commission has policies that it adopted, which pertain to abandonments. And I list those in the staff report here. First, public interest has to be clearly demonstrated. This portion of Swan Street is vacant.
It abuts I'm sorry. It's not it's not vacant. It's a dead end. It abuts lots that are owned by and only use useful for the the property owned by the petitioner, so we would not object to the abandonment. It would not have an adverse impact on the public interest.
No negative impacts are evident on existing land uses. The petitioners own all the lots abutting the abandonment area. There would be no physical or legal access denied to any land or property by the proposed abandonment. We don't know if there are public services or facilities that need to be protected or maintained. The petitioners would need to grant any necessary easements.
That's that's a standard practice when it comes to these abandonments. The public works and all the the utility companies will weigh in on this at the city council level. They have provided a petition and a plan, and this isn't this is would be in conformance with existing zoning and a comprehensive plan. So with that, we recommend that you advise the committee on public works that the proposed abandonment be approved subject to the following conditions. The petitioner shall apply for an administrative subdivision to merge the abandoned portion of the street with their property prior to the council's action, and the petitioner shall grant any necessary easements for access to the property, utility access, and maintenance.
