Good afternoon. We will call this regular meeting of this Providence City Plan Commission to order. Today is Tuesday, 07/15/2025. It is 04:47PM. Let's start
out with, with a roll call. Noel Sanchez.
Miguel Casaba. Cheyron Mandrakar, DVD staff.
Megan Defanto, legal counsel.
And I'm Michael Gazdako, chair. We have minutes that were circulated from the 06/17/2025 meeting. I hope you all have had a chance to review them. If there are any edits, now is the time. Otherwise, we could entertain a motion to approve.
Move to approve the minutes. Right. We have a
a second. Alright. All in favor of approving the minutes as drafted, say aye. Aye. Any abstentions?
Any opposed? The minutes carry.
Director's report. Okay. So over the past, month or so, we have been, running this little group that is helping us with design standards. This was something that was part of the comprehensive plan. Charlotte has been participating in this.
We've had a couple of meetings so far where we've talked about residential standards. Tomorrow, we're meeting again to start talking about, larger commercial and mixed use buildings. I think it's going well. I think there are some ideas that are percolating, and I feel confident that, this fall will have, a slate of proposed regulations for you to consider. Meanwhile, the general assembly has finished its session.
And, as they have in the past couple of years, they passed a raft of bills, that are, intended to improve the zoning and planning process. So we are in the process of evaluating what was passed, and we're gonna need to incorporate those into our zoning ordinance and into our development review regulations. So you'll see some of that coming as well. One of the other big things that happened, which was part of the comprehensive plan, was that following the city council's actions earlier in the year, the general assembly voted to dissolve the city, the Capital Center Commission. So, that body no longer exists.
And the downtown design review committee, in accordance with our zoning ordinance, automatically takes over the jurisdiction of that area. So I would say that that we are very steadily implementing our policies in the comprehensive plan, and, things are going along pretty well. There's there's a lot to do, coming out of the the assembly session. I would say that that there's nothing in those bills that's particularly alarming to us, And I think, in some ways, could be very helpful in terms of of process.
So you you anticipate the next set of of changes to zoning and and the development regulations subject directly related to the changes to general assembly, and then we'll continue to work on the second round of zoning changes from the comp plan.
I I think I think parallel. Okay. And and depending on depending on how the work goes with the committee, we may, we may advance design regulations together with, state law changes. And then, as we do on a regular basis, we'll also have a little bit of zoning cleanup. Some some you know, because of what the state has done.
But, you know, we'll we'll have to see, how how we end up framing this up. But you could you could see, again, end of summer, early fall, you'll you'll see some significant zoning changes coming through. Wonderful. Thank you.
With that, if there's nothing else, we can roll right into the first agenda item, which is a
city council referral for, 1 Charles Street. It's referral number 30 3601.
Sure. And, mister chair and commissioners, a quick introduction. This is a request to rezone the subject property from R 4 to D 145 for the express purpose of allowing on an Airbnb use that's within the building to continue by right. So Airbnb's in the R 4 are required to be owner occupied and based on the latest changes to the zoning ordinance. And so the petitioner is requesting the zone change in order to allow the use to continue as it has.
So, petitioner is here, and they can walk us through.
Sure. Good evening. My name is Jeff Padbov. My office, 1 Park Row. With me is my client, Carlos Varam.
Let me if you wouldn't mind, it might be helpful. I'm gonna pass out some, maps and vision so you can see the property that we're talking about. You could see from the first page I've highlighted in pink. This is this this tongue that comes down between Charles And North Main Street. And in that that grassy area, that's where the Wamsagafucka River comes through there.
And then you can see on the next page, you know, there's a number of different zoning districts that come right together there. Also, there are four of the different wards all come together. In the next page, you can see an image of the building as you go down, Charles Street. And then the next page is sort looking back and seeing it. You can see where the river is in relation to that.
Clearly, this was, an old mill buildings, commercial building, and it's surrounded by commercial zones, the c c three zone to the to the north, the downtown zone to the, to the west. Up the the hill towards North Main Street, there's a residential zone, and there's a nice buffer because it sort of goes up uphill up there. And, yeah, mister Varam and his family have been buying property in Providence, mostly Federal Hill in Providence, the East Side for a number of years. They have have, I don't know, 10 or 15 properties, all rental, some of which are long term and some of which are short term rental. This is a short term rental property.
He's had it since 2022, and each year, he has applied for and received a temporary certificate of use. And that was allowed, an allowed use in the R 4 zone. When the new zoning ordinance was passed, it required owner occupancy, which this is not. And so that's the the motivation for requesting the zone change so that he could continue the use. The use is not grandfathered because of the requirement to get the annual, temporary certificate of use permit.
So as I said, this was clearly a commercial use way back when. It's a high density area. The use has not interfered at all with any of the neighbors. And and so we believe it's consistent with the comprehensive plan in terms
density. It's consistent with the goals and objectives of the zoning ordinance. And as laid out in the staff report, we feel that there's great support for it. So, that's basically why we're here and why we're asking for the relief.
Thank you. Commissioners, any questions of the applicant? Alright. Let's hear the staff report then, and, we can open up to public comment.
Sure. Commissioners, as has been pointed out, this use is directly adjacent to the downtown zone as borne out by the future land use map of the comprehensive plan where downtown mixed use is adjacent to high density residential development. Both of these land uses support short term rentals. And given that this has operated for a number of years, we don't foresee a negative impact on neighborhood character surrounding property, and this would be consistent with the purposes of zoning as well as the comprehensive plan. So based on that, we recommend that you make a positive recommendation to to the city council to approve the change.
Okay. This is a public hearing. So with this, we will open up public comment now. If anyone here in the room wishes to speak on this matter, please raise your hand or make your way to this pillar here. And if anyone in our online room meeting room wishes to speak, raise your virtual hand in the middle bottom portion of your screen, or press 9 if you're calling in.
Nobody signed in for that. So with that, we will close the public comment portion of this agenda item. I'm just quickly reviewing the the use tables for the the D 1 zone. Very similar to Yep. C 2.
this is directly across the street from the D 1 zone. And we suggested the the subdistrict of 45, which is the height limit, that's the same as the height limitation in the R 4 zone. Alright. And this, by the way, is in a historic district as well, so you're not likely to see any significant modifications to the building.
Yeah. Otherwise, I mean, it makes sense. It's kind of on its own little island down there anyway. Almost
That was gonna be my question. This changes nothing about the historic district. Does there any change? Just
quick. What was the previous use? Was it just rentals?
R 4, which allowed Airbnb. Okay. Previously until we changed the zoning and disallowed it unless it was owner occupied.
Got it. Do you mean previous to 2022?
Yeah. What was the use before? Sorry.
Can ask the applicant. Prior to 2022, what was the use of this building?
It was mixed use, commercial and residential. Yeah.
