EAST PROVIDENCE – The city’s Special Waterfront Development District has received $334,746 in state and federal aid to support environmental protection and sustainable development initiatives.
“These projects are part of a strategy to diversify our economy, create new jobs and be a city that helps businesses lower their energy costs,” City Manager Richard Brown said in a statement.
The new funding, and the projects supported, are:
• $234,746 in federal funds to help small businesses incorporate green design and other sustainable approaches into construction and renovation projects within the district.
The money was in the recent Consolidated Appropriations Act, the government’s stopgap spending bill for fiscal 2009, which also allotted $666,050 to support Rhode Island’s landmark Ocean Special Area Management Plan. (READ MORE) The district commission credited U.S. Sen. Jack Reed – along with U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy – with securing the funding.
• $100,000 for habitat restoration and runoff prevention: $20,000 for a program to elimate phragmites (invasive plants) and replace them with native vegetation; and $80,000 for the design and construction of “vegetated stormwater systems.”
Those awards – made through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Section 319 nonpoint source water-pollution program – are in addition to the $234,000 in stormwater management, design and construction aid the commission received from the EPA in 2006.
“These funds will enable the city to use innovative technology to improve the water quality of Upper Narragansett Bay,” Mayor Joseph S. Larisa Jr. said in a statement yesterday afternoon, adding that the projects also will help ensure “a healthier environment and lower energy costs” for companies in the Waterfront District.
The city recently approved a tax-increment financing (TIF) plan to encourage development in the district. Money from the TIF bonds can be used for land acquisition, demolition, infrastructure development, as matching money for federal grants or to provide developer incentives, city officials said. “Local governments benefit from higher property-tax revenues once the bonds are retired, and may receive more wage taxes if the development project results in a creation of new jobs,” they added.
“Although it may appear that little is happening in the Waterfront District, 2009 is actually shaping up to be a very prosperous and active year for East Providence,” said Jeanne Boyle, executive director of the Waterfront Special Development District Commission.
Among other projects, her office cited the R.I. Department of Transportation’s plan to seek bids for the second section of Waterfront Drive, from Interstate 195 to Dexter Road. The thoroughfare will serve as the Waterfront District’s main north-south corridor. Its first section – from Warren Avenue to Bold Point Park – already has been completed.
For more information about the East Providence Special Waterfront District and the 19-member Waterfront Special Development District Commission that oversees it, call (401) 435-7530 or visit www.EastProvidenceRI.net .
