On Monday, the Providence City Council voted to accept the amendments proposed in the most recent version of its Comprehensive Plan, a ten-year roadmap for the city. The amended Comprehensive Plan will now be voted on for passage at the Nov. 7 full Council meeting.
The final version of the draft plan included amendments to prohibit fossil fuel-based power plants, toxic chemical storage and manufacturing facilities in the Port of Providence area, which prompted discussion among residents at the hearing.
In a press release, the City Council said Providence’s port area has “been used as de facto dumping ground by heavy industry,” which has affected “the city’s most economically disadvantaged communities” and stifled the city’s attempts to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
Resident Kate Schapira ’06, a senior lecturer in English at Brown, supported the plan’s commitment to prohibiting new “polluting industry” development in the Port of Providence.
“The South Side is people’s home, not a sacrifice zone for the wealthy,” Schapira said at the hearing. “Our city does not need that money at the expense of the health and lives of Black, Brown, disabled and impoverished residents.”
Julian Drix, chair of the City Sustainability Commission, said the amendment “is not nearly enough” to address the environmental issues in the area. He noted that the prohibited industries are either “things that will not be expanded because there's no place or need to expand them, such as power plants.”
Drix added that toxic chemical manufacturing is already prohibited under current zoning ordinances and ethylene oxide manufacturing is not a current use in the Port. This amendment “is not offering us anything,” he said.
Several residents also criticized lobbyist push back against the amendment.
At the hearing, Doug Victor said that “lobbyists and developers have a lot of influence in our governmental processes and they impact the outcome, oftentimes in ways that ordinary residents of Providence do not have the occasions (or) the resources to do.”
Ellen Tuzzolo testified that she disapproves of “the pattern of community members coming (to hearings), spending hours providing testimony, retelling our trauma and our pain, being promised changes” and having them appear in proposed documents only to have those efforts “torn apart by lobbyists” behind the scenes.
Residents also discussed the amendment to prohibit the development of new gas stations in Providence. The amendment was a point of contention between the City Council and Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, The Herald previously reported.
The amended plan now prohibits new gas station development, “except by special use permit if the targeted land is unsuitable for residential development.”
Avani Ghosh is a Metro editor covering politics and justice and community and activism. She is a junior from Ohio studying Health and Human Biology and International and Public Affairs. She is an avid earl grey enthusiast and can be found making tea in her free time.
