Doesn't have all these programs. It just has one. 2023 at 04:50PM. Let's go around and do a roll call. Noel.
Manager, guard deputy staff.
Sharon Garnerleo, counsel.
Bob Azar, staff. And Michael Gadsdaco, chair. We hope that you've received the minutes from the 09/19/2023 meeting in advance and had a chance to peruse them. If anyone has any edits, clarifications, or simply wishes to approve them, now would be the time.
Make a motion make a motion to approve minutes.
K. We have a motion. Do have a second? Second. So a second.
Let's just I'll go around. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay.
Abstentions, the minutes carried. Mister Azar.
Good afternoon. Good afternoon, commissioners. So, I'm gonna be talking in item number two about these new regulations that are are gonna be coming your way in a month so we can save my director's report for then. I just wanna make a note that item number three is gonna have to be continued. We're gonna have a recusal on that.
That's gonna take you below your quorum. So item number three for anybody who's here on that one, that's 870 Westminster is gonna be continued to next month.
Okay. Thank you very much. With that, we will roll into our first agenda item, which is a request for extension case number 220-3063 It's 322 Washington Street, and I believe the applicant is here. I am. Hello,
members of mister chair. Thank you. My name is Rob Stolzman. I'm the attorney for LAC Rockland Street LLC, the applicant, Lincoln Avenue Capital. We were here in December receiving it, and thank you.
You're very helpful. We received an approval for a major land development at at the property. You may recall that the financing of this was going to occur with Rhode Island housing housing financing. This project is a 100% affordable housing product. Unfortunately, we didn't receive the grant funding in the last cycle, but Rhode Island Housing encouraged us to reapply in this next cycle.
Your approval, you may recall, is a ninety day approval with the one and you approved the one year extension, But the two still don't overlap. If we apply in December and receive funding in the spring by the time we close the your app your app I'm sorry. Your approval would have lapsed. So we just respectfully request a one year extension strictly for the purpose of applying reapplying to the Rhode Island housing program. Your ordinance provides for four criteria for approval.
I think you may have in your packet in my letter. And and just very quickly, the project isn't, still was multifamily housing and complies with your comprehensive plan. It still, applies I'm sorry. Remains substantially the same. The premises in your ordinances remain substantially the same as of the time
approval. Three, the zoning map for the project remains the same. You may recall that we were anticipating and had received the transit overlay district designation for this property. That's been approved and remains in place. And this this the site on which the project is to be developed is not undertaking substantial change in its physical condition.
Unfortunately, it still remains a parking. So our goal is to activate that parking lot, do a multifamily project. We're in the process of working with Rhode Island Housing on their design criteria. If there's a substantial change to the design based on the Rhode Island Housing financing criteria, we'd come back to you with that design change, but it's still multifamily affordable housing on a site that's right on the bus line on the service road. So it's really a a good project.
You approved it unanimously. We're just not lining up the timing exactly with your island house. So that's our story. We're sticking to it, and we hope for your future. K.
Thank you. Bye. And Mr. Seeley, Ted Seeley was gonna join if in case you had any technical questions that I might not be able to answer, but
I don't know if you have him on.
I believe we do have him, but I'm not sure it's necessary.
That's fine. That would be or commissioners, do you
have any questions for the applicant?
No. This is just an extension so that we don't need to take any public comment. Correct? Okay. Is there any other staff comments?
This is we do this pretty regularly, so I'm happy to update them what was presented make a motion to approve the extension. I can. Okay. Go around
and do a voice vote. Noel? Aye. Sean? Aye.
And I vote aye. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
We'll move right into the second agenda item, which is the city council referral or the development review regulations. So I guess, Bob, you're probably gonna pick this one.
Yes. Thank you. Alright. So we've been talking about this for some time now. This is the second piece of the regulatory changes that we are proposing.
We previously came to you with zoning changes, and those changes have moved on to the city council. We're we're gonna be presenting them to the ordinance committee tomorrow, and then there's gonna be a public hearing on November 1. So, that is moving forward. If all goes well, we'll have those adopted before the end of the year, which is the deadline, by which, the the state has has the the deadline that the state has imposed on us. So now we're coming to you with this memo, not the actual regulations, but a memo describing the regulations that are in the works.
These are your development review and subdivision regulations, and you use these to review land development projects and subdivisions. And now under the the new state law, you will also use these for development plan review. They will also apply to the administrative officers who do development plan review. Those are our staff of our department. It will also apply to our downtown design review committee, which will also be a development plan review body.
So this is a new a new aspect of the land development and subdivision act that that development plan review becomes sort of third type of review on a par with subdivision land and land development projects. So so that's important to understand. So I'm just gonna walk through this, and I've got a couple of questions that I wanna pose for for discussion. And our intention is to have this full set of regulations in your hands before next next meeting in November. We would like to schedule a public hearing in November that you where you can take public comment.
Because this doesn't have to be adopted until December and you are the body that adopts it, You should feel free to continue the public hearing until December, but we're hoping that we'll have this all tied up by your December meeting. You can adopt it, and we'll be ready in January with this whole new regulatory structure. So with regard to subdivision, administrative subdivisions are the same. You never see them because they're done at the staff level. These are subdivisions where there's no new lot creation.
Typically, they're mergers or or moving of lot lines, that stays the same. Minor subdivision has changed. Right now, anything where, more than, between two and five lots are created as a minor subdivision. It comes to you whether it's by right or not. Under the new law, anything up to nine lots is going to be approved administratively if it doesn't require zoning relief.
If it requires zoning relief, it comes to you for unified development review. So item number item number four, which is a two lot subdivision, because it involves zoning relief, you're still gonna see that. K? And then anything from above nine lots is a major subdivision. You almost never see these, but the process will be the same.
It'll be master preliminary public hearing. Okay. Land development project. This is different. The the statute for the very first time well, the statute used to say, you can define land development project any way you want.
You can set the triggers anywhere from a new single family house to, you know, an apartment complex, whatever you want to subject to planning board and review. In Providence, our trigger is 10,000 square feet of new gross floor area or 10 new dwelling units, new gross flare floor area that creates at least 10 dwelling units or 50 or new parking spaces. We didn't change that in the proposed zoning, so that's still gonna be a trigger for for land development project. But the enabling act now talks about minor land development projects. It has it has these triggers.
For example, 7,500 square feet of floor area of new commercial manufacturing or industrial development or less, which is kind of odd. That means anything from zero to 7,500 square feet is a land of land development project. Even though even though minor back up for a second. The the under the new statute, minor land development projects, if they don't need zoning relief, are reviewed by staff. But I think it's kinda ludicrous for us to take an application for a land development project for for, you know, 500 square feet of of commercial and review it according to the stages and issue letters and have things recorded and so forth.
These are routine building permits in Providence. The good thing about all these triggers is that the state law says that we can increase the thresholds. So that's why we wanna stick with our 10,000 square feet. Under the existing law, anything that is strictly residential is a minor land development project, and anything that it has has mixed use or commercial or industrial is a major land development project. That's different under the new law.
The new law provides for a certain degree of commercial even in minor land development projects. So all that said, we're proposing these four different criteria between ten and twenty thousand square feet of new gross floor area of commercial manufacturing or industrial development, an expansion of between 10,020 square feet of the same new gross floor area creating 10 or more dwelling or rooming units, which is the case today for minor land development, and between zero and twenty five hundred square feet of commercial space. So we're suggesting that a minor land development project can have a small amount of commercial by right, and it doesn't trigger major land development project review. And we're keeping the 50 or more new parking spaces. So once again, our proposal is if you hit any of those triggers, you're a minor land development project, unless it requires zoning relief, in which case it comes to the to the plan commission.
Now a question. We we are proposing also that if anything needs a dimensional adjustment, like additional height, that should also come to the plan commission. That's discretionary review, and it should continue to be at your discretion. Our question is with design waivers, if a project is fully compliant but for design waivers. And here we're talking about building facades, building entries, fenestration, roof materials, build two percentage, things like that.
The question is, if it would otherwise comply and doesn't need to come to you because of a dimensional adjustment or a zoning variance, should those things be could those regulations be waived at the staff level? And we would develop a series of findings that would have to be made for waivers regardless of whether it's staff or commission. But I'd I'd like to kind of put that out there for a little bit of a discussion. Would you feel comfortable with staff granting certain design waivers? And it doesn't have to be all of them.
It could be some granted by staff, but some have to come to the commission. Ground floor uses, for example, is this one that is often somewhat contentious, the Ground floor uses within 20 feet, I think that probably still comes to the commission. But some of these other things, I'd
like to hear your take on it. And these these would all have, criteria or findings that have to be met in whether it's staff level approval or
Yes. Or our approval of those.
We don't have those today, but but, we acknowledge that that, it's probably a good idea for us to have those, especially if it's at the staff level. We should we should be making those findings.
