Providence City Council Meeting | November 13th, 2025 | Committee on Ordinaces

Hopefully, you had a chance to sign up if you're here to speak. Welcome to committee on ordinance. Today is November 13, and the time is 06:10. Madam clerk, could you please call the roll? I'll need to call the roll.

Well, that's just wonderful. Alright. So tonight with us, we have our committee members, councilwoman and vice chair, councilor Peterson, as well as council member Vargas, and one of councilman, Royals. And I also like to welcome councilwoman Athea Graves who has joined us tonight. So councilman Goncal, to our policy team, and our city solicitor.

Tonight, we'll be hearing testimony on student impact fee. There will be no vote taking. We're just here to listen to your testimony and your comments about this issue, which we know it's it's very important to a lot of people. Madam clerk, I have documents that was submitted to us, Letters in opposition, letters in favors, petitions, and also including a letter from councilman Gunkhouse who will will no longer be the main sponsor for this bill, but actually, it'll be councilwoman Peterson. Would you please enter all of those into the records?

So noted.

And what that say, we'll go right into the item number one. Madam Clerk, would you please read it so that we can continue.

Item number one is an ordinance amending Chapter 13 housing of the Providence Code of Ordinances to add Article 10 student impact fee.

Thank you. And before I call anyone, so I'll have the who is now the sponsor, Councilwoman Peterson, just to give us an overview of what it is that she is presenting tonight. Councilor Peterson, please?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for being here. We very much appreciate the opportunity to provide you the chance to come and speak on on this particular ordinance. So the quickest overview of this particular ordinance is a $300 student impact fee put forward to the property owner, very specifically property owner that has exclusive student housing.

The additional piece to this is data collection that we're requesting of the colleges to be able to understand how to navigate and mitigate the continued student expansion in all of our neighborhoods. It's something that I believe all of us, whether we live in Elmhurst, Wanskuk, College Hill, or, Washington Park, I think the opportunity to be able to weigh in as to how this looks like for the rest of the city and how the city kind of expands with this particular situation should be we should be able to do that and provide some substantive policy or ideas moving forward about what expansion does in our neighborhoods. The last piece of this is excuse me, the data collection is actually we're going to be requesting that from the colleges as part of some of the things that they should be offering the city with information. I think as their enrollments expand, I think it's really important that we understand exactly how their expansion is going affect us. And then, the last part of this is the noncompliance.

The noncompliance of this is if you do not comply with the provided fee, it becomes a violation put forward by the DIS director at the discretion of the DIS director to then be able to, up to $500 a day, create a penalty. This is specifically for non compliance. So, I want to make sure that I read a couple of things. These are the very basics of this ordinance, but I do want to make sure that I hit on a couple of things because I understand that the narrative, at least in my neighborhood, has been a little bit forceful in terms of trying to impact students, and a lot of fear mongering has gone on, and I don't necessarily want to continue. I'd like to make sure that we dispel as much of that as possible.

So thank you, everybody, for coming out to testify tonight. I'm sure your emotions are high, and I know that not everybody agrees with what's being proposed. But disagreement is part of the part of democracy, and if we're going to move forward as a city, we do have to start by facing the truth about what's happening in our neighborhoods. What we're discussing tonight isn't about politics or personalities. It's just about fairness.

It should be about accountability. It's about whether we believe that everyone who benefits from our city should also share in the responsibility of taking care of it. To dispel a very immediate rumor, student impact fee is not about punishing students. It's about holding accountable the landlords and developers who profit most from student housing while contributing the least to the neighborhoods that they reshape. In Ward 14, we've had to install more than 200 new parking signs, we've had to clear drains more often in those particular areas, and we've had to respond to more police and sanitation calls than any other part in the ward.

Those are real costs and the costs that the city covers so that they can keep profiting. Let me be clear. This fee applies to the landlord, not the students. It's $300 a year. That's the number they're fighting.

And yet, in my neighborhood, the largest landlord collects more than $7,000,000 using very modest numbers in rent in Elmhurst alone. They tell students that this fee will be passed on to them while continuing to charge extra for cleanups, for adding fees to whatever property that's already in the apartment, and charging you fees for whatever might be going on with whatever is in there. There's added fees for pretty much everything that you guys have, right? That's actually not necessarily really good execution of what it is that you're doing or what you're supplying them with at a modest fee of $550, which was reported by the largest landlord. At 1,200 students, you're looking at $660,000 a month.

We know very well that very few students are paying $5.50 a month in rent, at least in Elmhurst. This is not transparency. It's actually manipulation. The money collected here won't go to the general fund. It's not going to get lost in red tape.

What I'm proposing for this particular fund, for this opportunity, for this revenue, is that the funds go directly to the home repair fund, the home repair program that was started this year. It helps our low income homeowners fix code violations by making repairs and staying in their homes. In a city where the median household income is 66,000 and the cost keeps rising, too many of our neighbors are one unexpected bill away from losing everything they've worked for. This particular fund helps families rooted here, helps preserve help them preserve in the neighborhoods that make Providence Providence. I take a little bit of offense to the landlord that specified that this was something as that was should be dismissed.

This is something that's really important to neighbors in the city. It's something that the city should consistently be providing for because we should be helping out our neighbors the most vulnerable whenever we possibly can. Now let's talk honestly about the students. Contrary to everything that they've told you, the city does value you. You are part of the fabric of providence.

You do support our businesses, you do volunteer your time, and you do bring life to our streets. You're not the problem. The problem is an unchecked housing system that treats you as a product and your neighborhood as a profit margin. To the students that are here tonight, I understand why you're frustrated. You've been told that this ordinance is being done to intentionally hurt you.

The truth is that you've been caught in the middle. Some of the people who told you to oppose this proposal are the ones who actually have fought from actually giving you this opportunity to speak today. They're not protecting your interests. That's them using your voice to protect their bottom line. Democracy is about inclusion.

It's about giving everyone the same chance to be heard, the same stake in the outcome. That's exactly what this ordinance stands for, a fair, transparent, and responsible approach that keeps our communities livable for everybody who calls them home. This isn't about drawing lines between residents and students. It's about drawing a line between fairness and exploitation, between community and corporate greed, between those who build a neighborhood and those who strip it for profit. We're grateful for the donations, the holiday drives, and all of the symbolic gestures.

They do mean a lot. They're generous, and they should always receive proper commendation. But none of that offsets the displacement of longtime residents or the decline of neighborhood of the neighborhood quality of life. That shouldn't be the price to pay if you're living in Elmhurst, in Wanskuk, in College Hill, or in Washington Park. Neighbours, students included, deserve to wake up and still recognize the street that they live on.

Students deserve housing that's safe, responsive to their needs, transparent, and respectful. Our city deserves leaders who stand up for both. Eisenhower once said, a people that that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. Providence has a choice, to protect privilege or to live by principles. I believe we choose principles because when we value our neighbors and we demand fairness, when we make sure that everybody gives back to the community that sustains them, then we can all move forward.

That's what this ordinance really represents. This is what this moment is asking for. One last thing before I end. There's a paper over here that kind of dismisses a myth and a truth or dismisses myths and adds truth. Anybody can review it.

One quick thing that I forgot on that particular piece of paper, and I want to thank the students that stepped up and showed us exactly what was being said because not a lot of it was actually true. The one thing that I did forget is the definition of transient. I feel like that was put upon you to say that that was something that was bad and it's actually not. The definition of transient is a person who's staying or working in a place for only a short time. It's literally the definition of the business model for this particular property.

And I'm sorry if it has become an incredible waste of time to continue receiving those emails. That's all I have to say. I look forward to all the commentary, and I am always available to sit and hear the concerns. There are many neighbors here today that can attest to the fact that we've openly afforded the opportunity to speak on this and on many other things that have happened. We encourage you to come out.

We encourage you to stay and listen and hear the concerns of your neighbors. Oftentimes, neighbors are simply saying, just get to know me. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you, counselor Peterson. Okay. So there's still time to sign up if you want to speak tonight. So the first person that I'll call, it's mister John Garyhee. Good evening, John.

Okay. Thank you. Mister chairman, for the record, my name is John Garahee. I'm an attorney, representing mister Walter Brownhawk. Mister Brownhawk provides many residents of the city Of Providence, including students with a place to live.

This proposal will obviously increase rent paid by many residents of the city Of Providence and is certainly counterproductive to the city's stated goal of providing more housing at lower rents. As proposed, the so called student impact fee directed at owners of property who lease to students is in fact a tax assessed not to recoup the cost of a specific service, but rather to collect revenue to fund broad government services and activities, the classic definition of a tax. It is punitive and discriminatory. Why not charge all senior citizens like me for the use of the fire department more than others? Is that next?

Why not? I would point out to you that a similar student impact fee was proposed by the city in 2009. It sought to assess a student impact fee of a $150 per semester on out of state students. Notably, the legislation was before the general assembly and not the city council because the city recognized then that this type of action is a tax, which requires general assembly approval. It was not approved then by the general assembly, and this should not be approved now by the city council.

Furthermore, an impact fee levied by a city was before the United Supreme Court just last year to determine its constitutionality. The Supreme Court held that such a fee imposed by the municipality is unconstitutional unless the fee charged was proportionate to the property owner's impact on the land use impact of the municipality. The supreme court said that such an impact fee must be directly related to the purpose. The nexus requirement, the court said, ensures that the government is relegated to further its stated purpose, quote, not leveraging its permitting monopoly to an exact private property without paying for it. Notably, the Rhode Island legislature has enacted the Rhode Island development impact fee as chapter 22.4 of title 45 of the general laws.

It contains several requirements that must be established before a municipality can impose an impact fee, many many of which are not included in this proposal, including the requirement that the impact fee cannot exceed a proportionate share of the cost incurred by the government entity in accommodating the development. In this case, each property must be evaluated to do to determine the impact a single student has on the particular municipality. This proposal fails that requirement because it is not possible to evaluate a particular student's cost to

the

municipality without engaging in pure speculation. Mister chairman, for the foregoing reasons and many others which you will be here tonight, this legislation is flawed, and we urge urge this body not to adopt it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Con. Thank you, mister Gary. Next person will be David Baskin.

Good evening. Good evening, members of the city council. My personal background, I am an owner at College Hill, you know, Brown University, RISD. I immigrated to The United States in 1979, came here to Providence. I grew up in Providence.

I went to classical. I went to URI. I'm not an out of state landlord. I am a person who grew up here and has not only invested in in the city of Providence, but I've worked very closely with a lot of you and try to make the city of Providence a better place to live, not only for students who live in housing, but also others. In the early two thousands between and somewhere between two two twenty ten and 2020, a lot of the buildings on College Hill were transformed.

Those areas were invested in. We put a lot of effort and a lot of money and a lot of sweat into that area. And what we did was we come we made sure that we were taking care of those students. And the amount of time, effort, and money that was put into it also increased the value of the properties, which increased the tax burden on all of the on all of the investors. So there's a huge increase not only in the capacity of College Hill and the number of students living in a very small amount of area and they're not expanding into the neighborhoods any longer.

You have an increased revenue for the city of Providence. That tax revenue is as John Gary he mentioned has been increasing every pretty much every three to four years. The amount of tax revenue, the amount of utility tax revenue, the amount of sales tax revenue is is is really related to the amount of investment that we put into the city. That tax is the tax that's being paid that that that we're paying into is taking care of all of those buildings that are five or less. Some of my buildings are larger than five units, so I pay for all of my own waste removal.

I've calculated the amount of waste removal I spend a year is $50,000. So the city doesn't do any of that on my behalf. If a fire is called, I get a fee. I get an actual invoice that is sent to me that I have to pay if there's a if there's a call to the fire department. So all of these fees are already in place and we pay them.

Just to get into the economic impact, the what I call unintended consequences. What happens when you when you put a fee like that or other fees that you might be thinking about or rent control or any of those other things, what you're doing to us is is maybe what you might not be even considering. When you take a student impact fee, you're driving students to possibly live on campus instead of off campus. We know that kids that students on campus have a have a meal plan so they don't spend as much money in the restaurants. And there's a down there's a domino effect on on the income of restaurants like for example in College Hill on Thayer Street or Hope Street or Brook Street, there's an actual domino effect where that revenue is going to go down.

If they go down anymore, they might actually close their doors and all the taxes that are paid by those restaurants will no longer be paid. There's already open areas. There's open there's restaurants closing on Thayer Street. There's plenty of availability for rent for commercial real estate in that air in in up right on Thayer Street. It's a very busy place and there's still availability to rent.

You know, the unintended consequences that that might close even further. The next thing that I want you to consider is as an investor in Providence all these years, there are gonna be we're not the only one we're not the ones investing all of our money. There's people that are supporting us. There's the bank systems, other investors, and I've talked to them. And they said that if there's an unknown additional set of fees that are gonna come from the city of Providence, we cannot invest in you.

And that's me. So, if they can't invest in me, I can't invest in Providence. So, what you're doing is with those unintended consequences is you're pushing a kid that came from The Soviet Union in 1979 who grew up in Providence, invested in Providence, lives in Providence, provides incredible housing for students and non students alike, takes care of them, you're pushing me out because I can't afford to invest in city of Providence without that support, the banks, without the investors. What you're also doing is unintended consequences is you're telling me that maybe I should sell. Student impact fee, rent control, sell.

That's what you're telling me. You don't want me around anymore. You want me to go to a different state? You want me to go to a different place? Should I go invest at URI?

I love College Hill. I grew up here. I invested in here. I know everybody here. You're asking me to leave.

If I sell to Brown University, there's no longer a student impact fee at all those kids because they're on campus. There'll be no more tax revenue from me because there'll be a Brown University on campus housing. This is a short sighted proposal. Please reconsider. Thank you.

Thank you. Jo Anne Rich.

Good evening council and committee members and councilors. I apologize. I have a tremor. So if you see me shaking, I'm not afraid. It's just a medical condition.

That's