Providence Committee on Ordinances-Wednesday, January 22, 2025-5:30 PM
Call to Order and Roll Call
The meeting was called to order, and roll call was taken by the clerk. With only two members initially present, the committee agreed to begin an informational discussion on the agenda item prior to establishing a quorum.
Item 1: Ordinance Amending Chapter 27 (Zoning Ordinance) to Implement Comprehensive Plan
Deputy Planning Director Robert Azar presented Phase 1 proposed zoning map and text amendments designed to align local ordinances with the city's comprehensive plan. Committee members discussed density regulations, household size limitations, student housing restrictions, row houses, and environmental site standards.
Motion to Continue Item 1 and Adjournment
The committee approved a motion to continue the zoning ordinance item to a subsequent meeting prior to scheduling a public hearing. With no further business before the committee, the meeting was officially adjourned.
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Hey, and welcome to first. You'll be in order to start meeting for the year, 05/25. The time is 05:34, and the date is January 22. I'd welcome you all here. Madam clerk, would you please call around?
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Chairman Eskinon? Present. Vice chair vice chairwoman Shelly Peterson. Her constituent Mary Kay Harris is absent. Conservant Oscar Valles is absent.
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Conservant Justin Valles is absent. We have two present, three absent. We don't have a problem.
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We cannot have a quorum, but we will have a just a discussion and conversation about the item of the agenda. Please read that.
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Sure. Item number one, an ordinance in amendment of chapter 27 of the ordinances of the city of Providence entitled the City Of Providence zoning ordinance approved 11/24/2014 as amended to change certain text in articles two, three, four, five, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, and twenty, and to amend the base and overlay zoning map. The following has been invited for a presentation. Robert Elsa, deputy director, department of planning and development.
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Thank you so much, And I also before we start, I'd like to acknowledge and welcome councilwoman Anthony, finance chair. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Councilor Vanderbloch. Mister Bob Beeson, team chair with the public credit development, city solicitor, as well as our wonderful clerk and a member of the policy team that is open here.
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As well as team vice chair, councilwoman Peterson. So we are going to have a discussion and conversation about the changes in the zoning and then the maps. As we know, we number one to go, we passed nothing like the plan, and that calls for changes of the zoning of the ordinance. And to go further into that, we have invited we could direct to the phone with them and mister Bob. So, Rose, are you?
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Sorry. Thank you.
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Thank you, mister Eric. Members of the committee, other council members, thank you for having us here today. We have been working for many months now on these zoning changes that are intended to implement the comprehensive plan. I'm gonna just kind of walk through for you tonight kind of in particular of what they're proposing. So,
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I think a good. Quick. Quick. Quick. Quick.
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So,
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Bottom right. Yeah. Quick.
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Oh, that one over. Eight.
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Nope. Down one.
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This one?
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Yeah. Can you do that? And then two. And also this. Got it.
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Yeah. Oh, why not?
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Do you have other documents or anything? No. I only have this one open.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Let's try one more time just to be able to use the clicker. It doesn't quite work. Okay. We may have to ask to move
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move the slides as we go. It's alright. Maybe just
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Hopefully, we can.
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Right arrow of the page now.
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Oh, yes. I do like that.
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Okay. Perfect.
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Yeah. Do that.
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No. And we're sure the clicker doesn't work. I'm sorry. Alright.
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Okay. Alright. We're in business. Okay. So this is what we're gonna talk about tonight, implementation of the plan.
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As we've been discussing for a little while, we've got two phases of amendments. This is what we're calling phase one, and phase two will follow. I'm gonna give just a very brief zoning refresher so everybody understands what we're talking about when it comes to this kind of regulation, and then I'm gonna walk through the phase one amendments. So just to make sure everybody understands why we're doing this, we have to operate within the confines of state law. There's there's a law that describes how communities have to do comprehensive planning, and then there are other laws that describe zoning and the land development process.
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These are the these are the three sort of guiding statutes for all claims across the state. And significantly, what we're talking about here is that within the comp plan law, it states that every municipality shall shall ensure that its zoning ordinance and math are consistent with the comprehensive plan. So if you say something in the comprehensive plan about changing your zoning ordinance, you have to implement that. And there's a time frame for for that implementation of of one year. Next.
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Alright. So phase one, this is what we're gonna talk about today. I'll get into this in a little bit more detail. Just for your information, phase two, which is not what we're gonna talk about, but but, you know, we're sort of working on these things, and we'll be kind of rolling them out with the city planning commission in the in the coming months. That includes provisions on gas stations, parking minimums, development incentives, design standards, green housing, industrial, slash port zoning, and clean area zoning.
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But we'll save that for another time. Challenging challenging issues all all of them. Okay. Next. Mhmm.
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Okay. So just a little refresher on zoning. Zoning regulates big picture zoning regulates two things. What you the the uses allowed on a piece of property and dimensions that are allowed with the buildings that go on that property. We regulate use through the zoning map that lays out where all the different zones are and then the use table, which gives you a list of of use categories and where they're allowed within the various zones.
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Next slide. And then zoning also regulates dimension. This is building height, setback, building coverage, impervious versus pervious surface, and and so forth. Next. We regulate site elements and design, landscaping, parking, when it comes to design, things like where entrances are located, windows on a front facade, things like that.
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Okay. So now we're gonna get back into the actual zoning amendments that are in front of me. This this multi page ordinance contains all of these these different things. Let's go one by three frame. First one is the zoning map changes.
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We've got a small version of this. It's double sided. You'll see that there are first, we're gonna talk about the map changes. This all of this is, this actual map comes right out of the comprehensive plan. These are the the map changes that are being proposed in the comp plan, and they're they're consistent with what's known as the future land use map.
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Going back to the state statute, the future land use map and zoning map have to be consistent with each other. So this is where we make all those changes that we talked about through the the conference planning process, creating changing areas of r two to r three, creating areas of r four zoning, combining the c one and c two zones, things like that, rezoning the the parcel that was in downtown that was slated for the the 600 foot tower that is no longer happening, all sorts of things like that that are enumerated. There's also an interactive version of this map online if anybody wants to drill down in specific parcels. Next slide. Okay.
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The the flip side here is the overlay zoning map changes. There there aren't a lot here, So the big ones are there's there are one, two, three, about seven changes to historic districts, Three properties being added to the historic district. Two on the Providence College campus where the property owner has consented. And, also, one piece of property on 8th Street in Ward 3 where the property owner has requested it. And then there are four properties that are being removed, and these are in the Industrial And Commercial Buildings District where the HTC has approved demolition.
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So there's no longer a historic building there. More where a lot line has been moved such that that property no longer has been historic build. And then the other thing is the capital center. Are we on the long
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No. Where? So would
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I just stop sharing it and then try to
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Or maybe going down. What if
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you went down with more than one?
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Yeah. I tried going down a little bit more. But No. Maybe I can hello, Giles. Okay.
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Those folks that are watching, just bear with us. We're having some technical difficulties.
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Back in business. Okay. So this slide, I described the historic district changes. Just a handful there. And the other, big big move here is deleting Capital Center Overlay District.
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And we've talked about this during the conference planning process. The regulation of development in downtown is complex. There were three different bodies that regulate development. The Capital Center Commission, which is a creation of the city and the state. The downtown design review committee, which is a feature of zoning ordinance.
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And then finally, the I one ninety five commission, which regulates its own land. That's that runs through downtown and into Fox Point. Capital Center District And Commission have done fine work over the years since the nineteen eighties regulating land. But as times have changed, that process and and the regulations really haven't kept up, I would argue that our our regulations for downtown design today are far superior, much more streamlined, much less expensive for property owners, much less bureaucratic. And so it's our opinion that it's time to sunset that commission.
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That's gonna take action not just from the city, but from the general assembly. So we are going to be introducing legislation at the state house this session to try to read those sections of state law pertaining to the commission, and this would be a new candidate. And and whatever we do here at the city level wouldn't go into effect until until and unless the state acts as well. Besides zoning,
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there is a Excuse me, mister Hazar. Consular