Good evening. My name is Stephanie Anthony. I'm an associate chairwoman of the committee on finance. I'm calling to order a regular meeting on Tuesday, October 1 at 05:30PM. We can move closer if you'd
like to. Good. You're all
I think it's good. I know we were friends. And then I'd like to thank our floors, Clarissa and Donna. Thank you so much for stabbing us today. Thank you.
And, of course, could you please read our numbers?
Communication from his honor and mayor dated 09/13/2024 informing the honorable members of the city council that pursuant to sections three zero two b in 10/13 of the Providence Home Rule Charter of 1980 as amended in public law chapter forty five fifty sections one through 31 passed in 1987. Of 28 Cambridge Avenue, Providence, Rhode Island, 2909 as a general citizen served category member of the city plan commission for a term to expire on 01/31/2029 and will separately submit the same for your approval. Miss McKenna replaces miss Birdie who has resigned.
Miss McKenna, if you would come up to the table, we'll swear you in. Well, thank you so much for coming this evening. I'm sorry we're not a full full compliment here to talk to you and act on your application. So if you wouldn't mind just giving us a little about your background and why it is that you wanna serve on the CDC. Sure.
So I was born and raised in Providence in the Mattoe area. I bought my home at Little Hill in 1999, and a master's in education from Harvard, a high school of education. So planning has been, you know, just something that I care passionately about and and very always have been very interested in how it works in Providence and what goes on in the neighborhoods in the city. And I would just be really thrilled to be on the city of. Thank you.
Well, there I think there's no question you have the skill set. Your expertise is, of course, aligned with planning, And I so appreciate that that's easy to serve. So I'm gonna open it up to questions for counselors. Any questions or comments? Question.
Thank Yeah. I've I've been
couple years now. I'm very involved in a lot of community stuff and cares deeply about the city. My just quick question is, have you followed any of, like, the comp plan stuff? And I know the CPC played a role, not necessarily at this point in it, but I was just trying to see if you have any opinions on kinda the direction the comp plan is moving in.
So I did read it, and I intentionally didn't read about what the CTC was saying about it because I didn't wanna be biased. So I have not but I designed Yeah. Because I thought that, you know, I didn't I didn't want it from the other preconceived ideas about how they're handling it without getting the benefit of how they work and, you know, what the big picture is first. So yeah. I appreciate that.
Thank you. Yes. You're not so great at all. It's nice to meet you. We've actually got here for it.
It's my nice face. So welcome back to City Hall.
I have two big questions. One was around and I was so glad to hear that you further focus on, like, community engagement and stuff throughout your resume. And I was wondering so one of the critiques, I guess, I've heard of the CPC is that the community doesn't feel like they have adequate ways to engage or that the ways the discussion that happens with the CPC seems to not reflect what happened like, what the community's concerns are. And the specific example I'll get from, like, your
home neighborhood is the medical neighborhood.
There was a large development proposed over 56 units on a single family lot. And the CPC passed it, which, you know, is the right and all the things. And because there was gonna be a zone change. And the only concern I had raised was, like, 100% student housing where it's, like, nowhere near school. Right.
And then we had, like, 200 people show up to community with, like, very different concerns. And so it just seemed like it was this very different like, the concerns about how it's reflected in the comprehensive plan for members of the community who, like, lived in that community were very different than how the CPC saw what they thought that the relationship was.
was wondering, like, how do you how do you use your role in CPC? Like, you do that kind of community to reflect the community. Yeah. I mean, so I have a communications background as well as community, and it's just I think that everything really does come down to communications and listening, and it's just when we're on the precipice of, you know, we know we need housing. We know that we need affordable housing.
But I also it also doesn't mean that every empty block should be filled with massive amounts of housing without any thought into how it fits into the neighborhood or how the neighborhood the existing neighborhood will interact with it and what their ideas are about it. The first thing that I learned it's funny because it's I mean, it's no secret that I worked in the mayor's office in the nineties that it was a very top down, you know, I hope that I'm answering your question, but I think that the more I get from the community, and I don't just mean to say people over and over again, but really getting out to, you know, the uses of the area and how people interact with their space that they call home on a broad scale, I think, is the only way that we can effectively build. Because, like, for example, I live across the street from the middle school. You know? And so the way that I interact with the street or the way that people seem to, they just geared up or just came down in June.
You know what I mean? Like, you can call on a Saturday. It's totally different than what it looks like at 8AM or 3PM, you know, on a weekday. And those nuances, you don't catch unless you ask. So I think that, you know, in my capacity, I would love to work towards a way to be better at asking, better at listening, better at probing, because, you know, you can ask a question and you get an answer, But you don't have to be skilled enough to kind of probe to get what the real answer is.
So I I just think it comes down with, like I said, communication and listening and asking the right questions and asking again. Yeah. So participation is key. Okay. Please.
Thank you. How do you feel about eliminating like, with your planning background, eliminating certain uses that we might think there are already enough of in the city? So instead of, like, the example I I'll do this. Councilman Sanchez and I work with councilman Goias to eliminate self storage facilities. So you not only can't have them by.
We we we have enough. We're saturated. Yeah. And there was a lot of pushback on the CDC for eliminating any use. I just thought maybe we should just take it a little more difficult.
How do you feel about, like not necessarily that specific example because we did that, but other things where it's like, maybe we've decided collectively as a city. We we have enough gas stations. We have enough gas. Yeah.
just feel about that? I mean, again, I think that a city, and this is what I love about playing, is, like, you know, all of them. Know? And so and trends that come along with, you know, all of a sudden, storage spaces are cheap to build, and they're whatever. And maybe there's a hedge fund behind it that has a lot of funding to do it.
this wild proliferation of it. I mean, I think it's our responsibility as citizens, as stewards of the public land to, you know, fill out the layers and look at what's going on, you know, here. One thing, you know, that I was very proud of when I worked for the administration back in the nineties was at that time, we had lots of big box stores looking for big footprints of land, and all the no buildings had the biggest footprints, and there was no protections on them. We can't even actually cover this. And so we had to, you know, calibrate to there was no restrictions to coming in and knocking down or Eagle Square or Alco or any of those buildings because we hadn't evolved to a place yet where we looked at those as historic properties.
So there's a dancehall movement, you know, from Eagle Square to save that parcel. But what that turned into was, you know, for me and specifically for choosing the block line who I worked with, looking at it like, oh, wait a minute. Come to break. It's like, these buildings are significant to our, you know, history as an industrial city, and we just had to freeze everything and look. And when we look back at those buildings now and sometimes I start dying, oh my gosh.
Like, that would be a closed shutter. It would be a big box. Yeah. Yeah. That would have actually closed by now.
You know what I mean? That that was very you know, that it always popped in my mind too. It was inter like, cool to see when it comes to my signature surgery and look at that more critically. You know? And so I don't know what the next thing is that you'll need to look at correctly, but I think that you have to keep looking.
Yeah. And if you are using your curiosity and having been on pulse of how the city is evolving and what that looks like, and I'm, like, coming with a value judgment of what I think it should look like, but of what you're seeing involved, you know, and being able to look at that objectively and weigh and balance that and then use, you know, input to guide your decision making on that. I think that's critical. And if you can't do that, do nothing. Thank you.
I appreciate that. That's fine. That's fine. Not so much. Any more questions?
Okay. Well, thank you very much. That was wonderful. I I get your instant by the babbling. Sorry.
We caught you just at the right time. Okay. Motion to approve. Second. K.
Motion to approve made by councilor Vanderpoel, seconded by councilor Sanchez. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed.
We will be recommending your approval to the city. Thank you so much. Okay. Okay. I think we have policy director, Aaron Gardner, who will be coming along with Mike Murphy.
Yes. I'm gonna have both of you come to the table. Is anyone here else here to talk about TSAs today?
Thank you both so much. I thought we might even though we have items one through four, which are some sort of repealing or canceling of TSAs, I thought you kind of could start by telling us under what circumstances we do cancel or repeal the TA six.
Yep. Yeah. Thank thank you. I'll comment and say that before it is that you had to see two that are ordinances that have been repealed and two resolutions that are cancellations. That would be because the two resolutions were tax legalization agreements that were entered before the council's 21 act.
So it was an administrative. So it was a so it was enacted differently than the other two of our ordinances. So so myself and, you know, Mike Murphy, we are we actually are part of the, you know, city's TSA working group, which, you has representation from all of the departments that, you know, have the same viewing TSAs. We discuss, you know, monthly. We talk about some of the new applications that are coming, you know, seeing when those applications can potentially be approved and added to a.
We talk about noncompliance and, you know, property owners who will be behind on their, you know, tax bills, etcetera. And we decide, you know, if you should, you know, send out noncompliance letters, sometimes especially given some of the older TSAs, a lot of, you know, legal legalese in there and things that we have to do before we actually send them out compliance letters. So we discuss those things, and we discuss communications that are coming in from TSA applicants and folks who actually haven't been with already. And then we just make recommendations on how we should move forward with, you know, some of the items that you see here on the list, which all of these, for the most part, are basically being reviewed. So that's the background.
I could just get into the reason why two twenty was recommended this year.
