Building and development projects in Fox Point will be heavily restricted over the next 12 months due to a moratorium passed July 5 by the Providence City Council. The ordinance was designed to delay development along Providence's waterfront as well as on the property made vacant by the relocation of Interstate 195.
The ordinance establishing the 12-month moratorium was passed in hopes that extensive neighborhood planning will take place over the next year, both locally and as a part of the city's Comprehensive Plan for Development, said City Councilman Seth Yurdin, who represents Ward 1, including all of Fox Point.
Yurdin said the neighborhood, which is near Brown's campus, would benefit from more thoughtfully planned development projects. "The history of Fox Point has been really affected by the way the big construction projects have been implemented," he said. "The original I-195 cut Fox Point in half and displaced a lot of people."
The ordinance does not ban all building projects in Fox Point, Yurdin said - just those that would require special permission from the zoning board of appeals, most commonly any buildings taller than six stories.
Yurdin said he has received a lot of support for the ordinance, not only from residents and businesses in Fox Point but also from Providence residents in general. "People want to see the city's plan implemented, rather than piecemeal development," he said. "It's not just a neighborhood issue."
While the largest parcel of land affected by the ordinance is the area made vacant by I-195's relocation, there has also been controversy over a section of waterfront property in Fox Point. For the purposes of the interstate's relocation, the state Department of Transportation acquired control of a six-acre piece of property - formerly occupied by the nightclub Shooters - at the head of Narragansett Bay, just west of India Point Park. However, this land is no longer needed by the DOT and is currently vacant.
Many residents of Fox Point would like to see that vacant land used for a public park, according to Daisy Schnepel, president of the Fox Point Neighborhood Association. The FPNA, along with Sen. Rhoda Perry, D-Dist. 3, Friends of India Point Park and Rep. David Segal, D-Dist. 2, have lobbied the DOT for public access to the land.
Perry and Segal, a former Ward 1 councilman, wrote in a letter to DOT Director Jerome Williams that there is a "substantial and growing interest" to use the property for public activities and that several non-profit groups have come together to consider uses for the property, which would reduce the government's expense by "several hundred thousand dollars."
Schnepel told The Herald that the property at the head of the bay is a "signature piece of land" in a floodplain, with deep water docking capabilities. Ideally, she said she would like to see the property used for public marinas and as a tourist attraction to bring people to Providence.
"If it gets developed by an independent developer and becomes high-end condos, no one will have any access to it at all. It will all be private," Schnepel said.
But the DOT wants to sell the six-acre waterfront property to a private owner or developer and has repeatedly objected to the 12-month development moratorium. In a letter to Mayor David Cicilline '83, Williams wrote that "the site's optimum location, proximate to the water, and the state's need for capital compel our wish to dispose of the site."
Williams went on to write that the moratorium would "deprive us of the chance to garner revenue" and "diminish the property's value." Representatives of the DOT voiced similar objections to the ordinance at a public hearing held by the Providence City Council, according to Ward 2 Councilman Cliff Wood.
Wood supports the moratorium, calling it an "opportunity to step back and look at what we're doing in that part of the city." According to Wood, the City Council's Committee on Ordinances, of which he is a member, unanimously voted in favor of the ordinance.
Wood said he felt especially optimistic about the ordinance since it will only be effective for 12 months. "A year isn't that long, in terms of moving properties through the government," he said.
Officials from Cicilline's office, which has yet to make clear whether the mayor will sign or veto the ordinance, could not be reached for comment.
