At odds over waterfront development

DR. DANIEL HARROP, who ran as the Republican candidate for Mayor of Providence in 2014, against Democrat Jorge O. Elorza and former mayor, Vincent A.
DR. DANIEL HARROP, who ran as the Republican candidate for Mayor of Providence in 2014, against Democrat Jorge O. Elorza and former mayor, Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Is Providence better off than it was 20 years ago?
At times, the 2014 mayoral race has felt like a referendum on that unusual local variation of the familiar campaign slogan.
Former Mayor Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci Jr.’s last-minute entry in the election cast the city’s attention backward to the two decades he spent in office between 1975 and 2002, and the criminal adjudication that interrupted them.
Nostalgia for those years, especially the booming national economy and “Providence renaissance” years of the 1990s, has helped Cianci energize supporters and burnish his message.
An independent, Cianci has argued that the Democratic mayors who succeeded him didn’t know how to get things done, causing the city’s progress to stall.
He promises to bring the “renaissance” back through experience, partnerships and initiatives such as a mixed-use transformation of the Allens Avenue waterfront carried over from his abbreviated final term.
“I think it was,” Cianci said in a recent phone interview when asked whether Providence was a better place to do business 20 years ago. “Look what was done. The rivers were moved, Providence Place was built, the economy was better, and there were better public-private partnerships.”
Cianci opponents, Democrat Jorge Elorza and Republican Dr. Daniel Harrop, however, argue that along with the recession, Cianci’s decisions as mayor – particularly 6 percent compounded cost-of-living pension increases – have helped contribute to the city’s recent struggles as much as anything.
And they offer the corruption conviction that ended Cianci’s reign in 2002 as the real legacy of his “get things done” leadership style.
“We need fresh ideas and new perspectives, not the same old politics of the past that got us into this mess,” said Elorza, a former housing court judge, in a phone interview.
With so much focus on the past, it’s worth asking whether a return to a 1990s-style urban-development boom is even possible between next year and 2020?
“People have this notion that things will go back to the way they were, that Buddy can get a building cleared in a day, but you just can’t do that now,” said Brown University political science professor Wendy Schiller. “If Buddy gets elected, the people might be very disappointed that he can’t deliver like he used to. He doesn’t have the statutory power. The City Council won’t let him do it.”
That new reality may be reflected in the agendas of not only Cianci, but the other two candidates in the race as well. Aside from the waterfront, which is also a large part of Elorza’s platform, the candidates have been light on big economic-development proposals.
Harrop’s signature issue is a plan to take the city through bankruptcy in order to relieve it of the unfunded pension obligations he blames Cianci for causing.
Elorza wants to build a citywide gigabit fiber-optic network to entice knowledge-sector companies to locate and grow here.
But the still-perilous state of city finances have made it difficult for the candidates to promise too much.
Thanks to a lingering structural deficit, one-time revenue in the current spending plan and a tax cut for landlords approved by city councilors, Providence is looking at up to a $24 million budget gap for next fiscal year.
None of the candidates has offered specifics of how they would fill that gap, although Harrop’s receivership plan would presumably free up money by reducing liabilities.
All three candidates said they would continue current Mayor Angel Taveras’ policy of freezing commercial tax rates and have said, with varying levels of conviction, that raising residential taxes is “not an option.”
The development issue with the most clearly defined differences between the three candidates is the Allens Avenue waterfront.
As with many issues, Elorza wants to continue the Taveras position on Allens Avenue, which is to reserve the land there, through zoning restrictions, for industrial use only. Supported by the City Council under President Michael Solomon and existing Allens Avenue landowners, that position was a change from Cianci’s late 1990s plans and those of his successor, David N. Cicilline.
Elorza does want to increase exports from the working waterfront, through market studies and trade missions, activities normally handled by state economic-development officials.
The kinds of value-added products he promises to boost exports do not resemble the bulk cargo the current Port of Providence handles.
Cianci’s waterfront plan calls on the city to suspend work on new, tighter zoning rules for Allens Avenue that actually became law in July.
What he would replace them with if they could be reversed is not specified, but would presumably allow at least nonindustrial commercial development, and recreational use, if not residential.
He would then look for state and federal funding to buy waterfront land owned by utility National Grid, and possibly other private parties, to build a cruise-ship terminal, medical-office building and soccer fields. Harrop, who last week was weighing whether to continue campaigning through Election Day on Nov. 4 due to poor poll results that placed him a distant third, would rezone the area for mixed use and let the market determine how it should be developed.
“For the city to decide what the waterfront should be used for is the government picking winners and losers,” Harrop said. “My thing is you make it an incentive zone. Ease zoning and permitting and let the market take over. If it is a scrap-metal port and makes tons of money, that’s OK.”
On zoning issues more broadly, Harrop said he supports loosening restrictions, although he believes planners should play a large role in making sure new additions to neighborhoods are compatible with what exists there already.
Addressing how the city will raise new revenue to fill its budget gap, Elorza said it has to come from new growth and mentions loosening residential zoning restrictions to allow more density.
“That is a conversation I am willing to have with the City Council,” Elorza said, about whether he would support loosening residential zoning restrictions beyond the pending city rezoning plan.
In addition to the waterfront, another area where zoning could have a large impact on business activity is Federal Hill, where a series of violent incidents this past summer drew outrage.
All three candidates said they would crack down on any establishment that becomes the site of persistent problems and work with existing merchants to improve the atmosphere.
Cianci was the most categorical in wanting to remove all nightclubs from Atwells Avenue.
“As soon as it was humanly possible,” Cianci said about removing nightclubs from Atwells, whose presence he blames on, among others, Cicilline and Zoning Board Chairwoman Myrth York, an Elorza contributor. “Merchants are upset, and I would do whatever I could do to not allow it.”
Elorza doesn’t call for removing nightclubs from the Hill and supports expanding a pilot program of later, staggered closing times for some clubs as a way to curb violence.
By allowing nightclubs, and some restaurants without alcohol, to stay open later than the current 2 a.m. limit, it would prevent the current “stampede” that often leads to violence, Elorza said. He added that it would also give the city a competitive advantage in nightlife over Boston.
Federal Hill is a traditional area of Cianci support, and Schiller said much of his appeal comes from long-time residents there and in other neighborhoods who feel they’ve lost clout to the progressive coalition represented by Cicilline, Taveras and Elorza. “The way you have to look at this election is the people who used to run the city versus those who run it now,” Schiller said. “The people who used to run it want it back.”
Along with an Italian-versus-Latino dynamic, Schiller said this included frustration from traditional power brokers such as unions, which have seen their influence eroded in recent years.
Both the city’s police and fire unions have endorsed Cianci, which Schiller said was probably because they would gain more political clout, if he wins, from helping him rather than a Democrat.
Lorne Adrain, an insurance adviser who briefly ran for mayor this past summer and has since been campaigning against Cianci, thinks the unions feel they will get better contracts from the former mayor.
“There is reason to believe if the guy gave us very generous contracts in the past in exchange for support, then our support now might encourage him to give us favorable contracts in the future,” Adrain said.
Generally the establishment business community has stayed out of the mayoral campaign, with Adrain and others suggesting they fear retaliation from Cianci if they speak out against him.
Real estate developer and former Mayor Joseph Paolino Jr., whose time in office was sandwiched between the two Cianci administrations, has been one of the few well-known businessmen to come out in favor of Cianci.
Paolino last week declined to discuss the race so as not to distract from his campaign for table games at Newport Grand, but this past summer said Cianci would be good for the city because of his record on developing downtown and ability to cut through the red tape and bureaucracy.
Darrel West, vice president at the Brookings Institution and former Brown professor, said the focus on the past in this Providence mayoral race is unusual nationally.
“Most mayoral campaigns focus on either the present or future,” West said. “It is common for them to lay out a vision, but unusual to have a candidate who served in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.”
“Most voters don’t have a critical memory that goes back 20 years, which is why candidates don’t make those comparisons,” he added. “Cianci has such a large personality and stayed in the limelight, it has allowed him to make those historical references.” •

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