Land Use 2025, a plan intended to guide Rhode Island’s development through the next 20 years, calls for the maintenance of the state’s mix of urban and rural uses as a means to curb sprawl.
The plan – adopted by the R.I. Planning Council on April 16 and presented at GrowSmart Rhode Island’s Power of Place Summit this month – promotes development within the state’s urban core and in targeted “growth centers” that would get priority for funding.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
The document also calls for the preservation of open space and “walkable neighborhoods.”
While Land Use 2025 is intended to serve only as a guide to municipalities and state agencies, state Associate Director of Planning Kevin Flynn said that actions must be taken to preserve the state’s urban-rural character.
In a presentation of the plan at the GrowSmart conference, Flynn said Rhode Island is developing land more than nine times faster than the population is growing.
From 1970 to 1995, he said, the state witnessed a 5-percent increase in population, but the amount of developed land increased 47 percent. Much of the blame, he said, could be placed on large-lot zoning ordinances that eat up land as developments occur.
“The population growth is pretty flat,” Flynn said. “It’s how we’re growing that’s impacting our community.”
In the plan – the first adopted by the council since 1989 – more responsible development is promoted through the use of growth centers, which would receive high priority in the state’s discretionary spending, technical assistance and expedited regulatory processes.
Twenty centers are marked on Land Use 2025’s accompanying map and they are intended to contain “core commercial and community services, residential development and natural and built landmarks … that provide a sense of place.”
Targeted centers, which are not intended to designate specific locations, include Burrillville, Coventry, Westerly and West Greenwich.
But growth in the rural, more western Rhode Island communities is recommended to be controlled, as the plan calls for the preservation of green space where available. Aside from land purchases, the plan calls for redevelopment within the state’s urban core, home to 75 percent of the population and stretches from Narragansett to the Blackstone River.
The concepts aren’t new in Land Use 2025, Flynn said. Land-use plans adopted in 1975 and 1989 by the council included similar language about maintaining the state’s urban-rural blend.
However, the efforts to curb sprawl have largely failed, Flynn said. As a result, Flynn pledged that the council and the R.I. Division of Planning will be more of a resource to municipalities as they move forward with their planning.
Also, he said organizations such as GrowSmart, which did not exist in Rhode Island at the time of the last statewide land-use plan, can be a great asset in terms of education.
In a panel discussion of the plan, the benefits of responsible growth and redevelopment were touted by officials including municipal leaders, developers and advocates.
Louise Durfee, president of the Tiverton Town Council and former director of the R.I. Department of Environmental Management, said her community recently went through a battle over its character over a large development.
Two major developers had proposed shopping malls, she said. Faced with rising property tax rates, some residents had backed the plan. But ultimately, believing that the proposals were not right for Tiverton, the town planning commission rejected the proposals.
The issue highlighted that the need for property tax revenue is an obstacle to promoting responsible growth, she said.
“The issue of capacity, of implementing this plan, is to require help and support,” Durfee said.
Mark Van Noppen, co-founder of The Armory Revival Co., said that implementing policies to promote smart growth is an immediate concern.
“I don’t think we need to sit here and deliberate this plan,” Van Noppen said. “I think we need to run out of here and scream ‘Fire!’ ”
