The University approves of the latest changes in the city's comprehensive plan, a document the city is crafting to guide future development.
Over the summer, the City Plan Commission, an appointed board of citizens that reviews city development plans, removed a guideline from the plan that would tax the University for properties it owns outside of the city's institutional zones. Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president, said the plan - which the City Council began officially considering at a meeting on Monday - does not contain "anything of significant concern" regarding the University's ability to expand in Providence.
"There was a clear agreement that we should look to the positive aspects of University and institutional growth and harness that rather than look only at the downsides," Spies said of the City Plan Commission's decision.
The plan contains few concrete changes to existing ordinances regulating educational and medical institutions. For example, the plan states that the city should aim to "strike a balance between institutional growth, taxpayer affordability and neighborhood preservation."
The plan also states that the city's development strategy should "require institutions to use their land more efficiently and expand on their existing campus footprint, while ensuring compatibility with the surrounding neighborhood."
Spies said he feels the City Plan Commission's approved draft reflects willingness on the city's part to work with Brown and other educational institutions in Providence.
"All in all I think the plan is a pretty balanced and pretty good proposal," Spies said. "Providence Tomorrow" - the city initiative to update the city's decade-old comprehensive plan - was initiated in 2006 after an unsuccessful attempt by Mayor David Cicilline '83 to overhaul the zoning code without first updating the comprehensive plan.
State law requires each city in Rhode Island to submit a comprehensive plan. The last comprehensive plan was adopted by the City Council in 1994 but not ratified by the state until 2002. In May, with the old plan set to expire, the city reapproved the old plan to create more time for the process of creating an updated version to proceed.
The City Plan Commission approved an interim draft of the plan in August, and the City Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing to solicit input on the document on Oct. 1. But many steps remain before the plan will become finalized.
The comprehensive plan will still undergo a two-year long neighborhood charrette process in which city residents will meet with Providence planners to discuss how the plans will affect their neighborhoods. How the plan will actually affect the city's development will depend on how city officials interpret the plan when they start to amend the city's zoning ordinances - the laws that govern how property in the city can be used.
Ward 1 City Councilman Seth Yurdin, whose ward includes most of Brown's campus, said he disagreed with the sentiment that residents wouldn't have any impact on the city's plans. "The idea is not to even talk about specific neighborhoods but to talk about general planning concepts and processes for the city," Yurdin said. "The proposed land-use map does not contain any changes other than a specific area along the waterfront on Allens Avenue. In some ways it is not really disturbing the status quo."
Spies said the University had multiple opportunities to weigh in on the plan, both through formal hearings and open discussions as well as a section on the city's Web site where residents and organizations could comment on the interim plan.
"The overwhelming weight of the whole plan is constructive, and balanced," he said. "Obviously one of the city's needs is to grow the tax base, but there is an acknowledgement in the plan that institutional growth can be a catalyst for growth in other parts of the economy and the community," Spies said.
But William Touret, president of the College Hill Neighborhood Association, said the plan was a "lost opportunity." Touret, who said he was speaking only for himself because the association has yet to fully consider the plan, is concerned that the city did not fully take into account the suggestions and concerns neighborhoods made during the city's initial charrette process that began in 2006.
"I think they are backing off the emphasis that they said they were going to give to the neighborhoods," he said. "None of the major issues on which we disagree with the institutions are directly addressed here. I think that the fact that you don't see any major changes in this plan works to the benefit of institutions such as Brown," he said.
Touret also expressed frustration with what he said was the plan's excessive emphasis on fostering commercial development in the city at the expense of open and public space, especially along the city's waterfront.
But not everyone feels that way. Ward 2 Councilman Cliff Wood, whose district includes the College Hill and Wayland Square neighborhoods, said the drafts "really update the old plan from '94." He cited revisions focusing on environmental sustainability, mass transportation and arts and culture.
"Providence is an entirely different place than in 1994, and I think this plan takes that into account," he said. "I don't think there is a fight to be had over this."
