Providence City Plan Commission, March 18, 2025 meeting
Call to Order, Roll Call, and Approval of Minutes
The meeting is called to order, roll call is conducted, and the minutes of the February 18, 2025 meeting are approved. The Director's report is presented, covering zoning changes and scheduling conflicts for the upcoming April meeting.
Agenda Item 1: Major Change to a Land Development Project (Case 25-006MA)
The Commission reviews a request for a major change to a land development project at 220 Blackstone Street to increase a building's height to six stories for a K-8 school. After public comment and discussion on traffic and parking, the Commission votes to reaffirm a 50% parking reduction and approve the major change.
Agenda Item 2: Major Land Development Project (Case 25-002MI)
The Commission discusses a proposal to construct a 32-unit multifamily development with structured parking at 217 Angel Street. Following extensive public testimony, including objections regarding neighborhood compatibility and support for housing, the Commission approves a photometric waiver, dimensional adjustments, and the preliminary plan with conditions.
Adjournment
A motion is made and seconded to adjourn the meeting. The motion passes unanimously, and the meeting is adjourned.
Speaker 0
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Thanks.
Speaker 1
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Good afternoon, evening. We will call this regular meeting of the city plan commission to order. Today is Tuesday, March 18. It is 04:47PM. Let's start with a roll call starting with Noel.
Speaker 1
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Noel Sanzio.
Speaker 2
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Dave Caldwell.
Speaker 3
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Doug McDonough.
Speaker 4
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Charlotte Lipschitz.
Speaker 1
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Miguel Casado.
Speaker 5
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Shayan, manager card, DPD staff.
Speaker 6
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Bob Azar, staff.
Speaker 4
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Megan DeSanto, legal counsel.
Speaker 1
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And I'm Michael Gadsdaco, chair. We'll go right into the approval of the minutes for the 02/18/2025 meeting. We hope you all they were sent out and circulated. Hope you had a chance to review them. Are there any edits?
Speaker 1
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Now would be the time or a motion to approve as drafted. Move to accept the minutes. Second. Alright. We'll go around and do a voice vote.
Speaker 1
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Just all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Alright.
Speaker 1
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The minutes are approved. Director's report, mister Azar.
Speaker 7
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You wanna talk about April?
Speaker 6
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Yes. So a couple things. First of all, the, first round of zoning changes that, you saw, I guess, now maybe December, has gotten first passage by the city council. Second passage is due this Thursday night, and we expect that to happen. And the mayor will sign it within a few days after that.
Speaker 6
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So that's a big milestone for us. We we we got a lot a lot advanced in that first phase. The second phase, we did have an agenda item number two. Sadly, I don't have too much to say too about it tonight, by the time we get I'm sorry. That was item number three.
Speaker 6
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But, we have, formulated physician papers on on several of the items that that are are in that second phase, including, gas stations, zoning, student housing, parking, and, the design regulations. We're gonna be talking with the mayor and others about that in the coming days, so we should have some more information for you next month on that. So the good news is that, we'll have a shorter meeting because I won't have anything to say about item number three. Bad news is I don't have any Much to say about much to say about item number three.
Speaker 1
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Understood. And then oh, yeah. And I also wanna talk about the April meeting. It seems that there are some scheduling conflicts. The scheduled meeting is slated for the April 15, which, is spring break for most schools in the area,
Speaker 7
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so I will not be here. We had
Speaker 1
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floated the offer the possibility of a twenty second meeting the following Tuesday. We wanted to kinda take a pulse and see who is gonna be here on the fifteenth, if we can get a quorum. If we can't, what about the twenty second?
Speaker 6
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Yeah. We had, I think we had heard that we had four could make it on the fifteenth, at least four, and and three on the twenty second. So, maybe maybe folks can tell us, how how many of you would be available on the fifteenth?
Speaker 1
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Three? We have three, four. You're Noel, you're you're good? Yeah. Well, then let's keep it for the fifteenth.
Speaker 1
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Yeah. You can share the meeting, and and we'll we'll just keep it as scheduled. Alright. Wonderful. Alright.
Speaker 1
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Enough, enough housekeeping. Let's move right into agenda item number one, which is a major change to a land development project that we've heard previously. It's case number twenty five dash zero zero six MA at 220 Blackstone Street.
Speaker 5
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Sure. Thanks, mister Chen. I'll provide a quick introduction as the applicants make their way up. So this is a request for a major change to land development project that most of you may have seen last year. It consisted of a multifamily building along with a second building of two stories that was intended for an educational use.
Speaker 5
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The applicant is back, and they're seeking a major change because they're now proposing to increase the height of that building to six stories. And as it results in a change of over 20%, they they are in front of you for a major change. So the applicants here, they're gonna tell you about the change as well as how it affects other other aspects of site development like landscaping, parking, and traffic. And you'll also be talking about the building's design. So, yeah, applicants here, and they can take it away.
Speaker 8
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Wonderful. Oh, it's great for you before the board. Thank you for having us again this evening. It's Bob going on. It's always little bit about that development we were in previously to speak about the plan?
Speaker 6
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I'm sorry. Harry, did you wanna just in introduce yourself?
Speaker 8
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Oh, have him do so. Harry Angevine, CEO of Marathon Construction Development.
Speaker 5
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Franklin Angeline, CFO of Marathon Construction Development.
Speaker 9
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Sam Hemenway with Garifolome Associates. So
Speaker 10
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Virginia Branch Branch Architects.
Speaker 8
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Do I have a career in being a game show host? Little practice. Anyway, so just a quick update on the Flynn, the six story commercial building and residential. We're moving forward on the 5th Floor currently. Still targeting to having the building capping off sometime in probably May this year and still targeting to have, you know, tenants moving into the building sometime second quarter of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 8
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So we're moving along with great guns and really excited about it, and thanks for all the support in the community. We really appreciate it. Since the last time we were before you, we had a couple of tenants that we had looked at, one being youth Building and so forth and a couple of others. And Achievement First approached us about six months ago, and as luck would have it, they're looking for a new location in the city of Providence. And it seemed like the stars had aligned to a very large extent, and they were looking to cite a k through eight program right in this neighborhood.
Speaker 8
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So we started to put pen to paper, see that we weren't overburdening the site, enlisted that help with Sam and Virginia to sort of come up with a concept here that they can talk about in a couple of minutes. But what's really exciting about it is they're gonna move in, you know, under the premise of having a k through five and see how that works and then move in, you know, that balance of, you know, six, seventh, And 8th once they've been up and operating for a couple of years. So it really settles into community nicely. As I'm sure you folks have concerns as well as we did initially about the traffic in the neighborhood, so we enlisted BHP, who is currently in the midst of an institutional traffic study for the hospital district of which we're involved in as well. And although there was a commune an elementary school in the community previously, there's some tweaking that needs to happen in the neighborhood.
Speaker 8
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And we took advantage of that relationship with BHB and brought in the city traffic engineer, Nate Orso, and sort of worked through some details, like replacing no parking signs that had come down after, you know, several years and making Blackstone one way all the way down to Eddy Street and really trying to create a grid system in that neighborhood. And to take it one step further, we're also exploring how to mitigate some of the parking issues that exist in that neighborhood as well. So that's I think at that point, I'll turn this over to Sam. He could give you a little bit of an update with respect to
Speaker 6
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I have a Zip drive if there's a
Speaker 9
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mechanism or not. I I I I sort of the expectation was showing that you would pull up the cyclone. But if I'm Yeah.
Speaker 6
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Do you have I have hard copies of I
Speaker 1
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think you could. Do have
Speaker 6
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a lap I can I can I I can have
Speaker 9
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the laptop? I I'll pull it up.
Speaker 1
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I apologize for the confusion. Confusion. Are
Speaker 3
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your hand angles up?
Speaker 9
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I I I I'm I'm happy to be. Do you
Speaker 3
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have the elevation too? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's Yeah. And this is rendering.
Speaker 9
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Oh, you you do have the site tenants anyway. We we brought elevation to the building and had a couple of perspectives of that information. I think this we have to see he has electronic
Speaker 3
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I'm sorry, mister.
Speaker 9
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I'm sorry. I believe You