Boiling point Neighborhood groups in Providence are fuming about a perceived lack of development policy — and the threat to the city’s identity BY IAN DONNIS

THERE’S A TIMELESS quality to Atwells Avenue, the main thoroughfare of Providence’s Federal Hill, where the old-school Italian restaurants and low-slung streetscape — most of the buildings are no more than three stories tall — still suggest the early days of the fabled immigrant neighborhood. Considering this, it’s not surprising that the abrupt approval of a 10-story luxury condominium near the outer edge of the Hill provoked the ire of a number of residents. Yet rather striking critics as just one misbegotten project, the forthcoming condo on the site of the vacant AAA Surgical Center has come to symbolize broader concerns about the future of Providence.

Around the city, citizen-activists and neighborhood groups are troubled about what they call a lack of sensible long-term planning on the part of city government. In the absence of such coordination, they point to the Atwells development as a case in which the Zoning Board of Review — an appointed, independent panel without any real oversight — decided a significant development matter through a zoning variance (structures in the area, near Holy Ghost Church, are limited to a height of 45 feet, but the condo tower will be 145 feet). As Providence faces a surging degree of development pressure, critics fear that a city whose appeal is based in no small degree on preservation and the quality of the built landscape risks diminishing its own distinct identity.

The focal points extend from the possible demolition of several downtown buildings, because of the city’s shortcomings in protecting them, to the sense that concerned neighbors are hard-pressed to match the expertise and financial incentive of developers. On the East Side, residents remain locked in struggles with Brown University and Miriam Hospital. On the West Side, a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru mulled for Broadway — a street lined with a number of stately Victorians — has raised hackles. When it comes to the rich opportunities offered by the changing Providence waterfront and the relocation of Interstate 195, critics complain of poor planning and a lack of respect for citizen input.

The prevailing feeling among neighborhood watchdogs is one of fear and frustration, says Kari Lang, executive director of the West Broadway Neighborhood Association, who heads a council of neighborhood group leaders that meets regularly with Mayor David N. Cicilline. "There’s a real feeling that things are broken and out of control," Lang says, "and it’s an unnerving feeling because so many people care and love the city, and work daily to make it a livable, wonderful place, and to honor its specialness."

Will Touret, a board member of the College Hill Neighborhood Association, says he recognizes that development is vital since Providence faces a desperate a need for additional tax revenue, and he notes the widespread view that development largely languished during the second mayoral administration of Buddy Cianci. Yet like other neighborhood activists, Touret, who stressed that he was expressing his own views, can quickly reel off a litany of grievances about planning and development (more about these later). Summing it up, he says, "There seems to be an emerging consensus citywide that development is not proceeding in a coherent or otherwise appropriate manner . . . The city’s longtime planning is not only years behind where it should be, but there are also serious questions about the quality of that planning."

Adds Mary Kate Harrington, director of preservation services at the Providence Preservation Society, "I think many of the issues that are coming up of late, a lot of them have to do with us not having the proper regulations in place. We get calls from people saying, ‘What can we do?’ The feeling is that things are slipping through the cracks."

Cicilline praises the city’s planning process, pointing to the ongoing development of individual investment plans for each of Providence’s 25 neighborhoods, a forthcoming rewrite of the city’s outdated zoning ordinances, and the award of a contract to Sasaki Associates a few months back to sew together a vision for development extending from the Capitol Center to Narragansett Landing. "There’s more planning and thinking about the future of our city going on than ever before," says the mayor. Cicilline points to the growing extent of development — estimated in a city report at $2.2 billion for the period from 2002-2009 — as a good thing for Providence, and he describes the griping over the Atwells Avenue project and other concerns as part of a "healthy debate" about balancing economic development with preserving neighborhood character.

Thomas E. Deller, the city’s director of planning & development, is more candid in acknowledging shortcomings, including how the Zoning Board should not be the forum for deciding major development projects, although he rejects assertions that the city’s identity is in danger and cites increased density in places like Atwells Avenue as a desirable goal. Deller blames the downside on outdated regulations, noting that the city’s comprehensive plan — which is supposed to help guide development policy — was conceived in the early ’90s and then approved by the state only in 2002. "We have to run to get ahead of the curve, and we have to lead instead of follow," he says, adding that the city should establish the vision, and that boards and commissions should then adhere to it. Still, when it comes to the potential harm posed by development to Providence neighborhoods, Deller says things like illegal auto shops pose a greater threat.

Richard Licht, the lawyer and former lieutenant governor who represented Premier Land Development of Providence, the developer of the Atwells project, before the Zoning Board, contends that the 43-unit development is attractive and will enhance Federal Hill. The height of the building, originally slated for 13 stories, is necessary, he says, to make the project economically feasible, and a number of architectural details were added to make it a better fit in the neighborhood. As far as assertions that the Zoning Board is not the best venue for considering such a development, Licht says, "We followed the law." Similarly, Sandra Carlson, a real estate agent who has chaired the Zoning Board for most of the last 20 years, says Planning & Development made its recommendation against approval without the benefit of testimony heard by the board, and she says some of the opponents lacked standing to comment because they don’t live within 200 feet of the site. Noting that the condo development is planned for a sloping piece of land, Carlson says it will look smaller than a 10-story building.

Critics, however, remain troubled, in part because of what they call a disparity between the rhetoric of the Cicilline administration — which has been in office for almost two years — and the current reality of development in Providence.

There are indications, too, that the administration was all over the map in its standing toward the Atwells Avenue luxury condo project. Asked if his administration took a position, Cicilline offered an explanation of the objections raised by Planning & Development before, when pressed, acknowledging that members of his administration may have encouraged Zoning Board members to approve it — as was the case, sources told the Phoenix. Deller says the administration at City Hall did not take an official position on the development. The mixed message leads one observer to quip, "What it does show is that the mayor’s not a dictator — that’s the plus side."

Although organizational efforts reaching across different neighborhoods remain at an early stage, there are rumblings (including a possible appeal of the Atwells Avenue condo project) that simmering discontent over development issues could coalesce into a citywide coalition. "I think it’s going to be evening bigger than Eagle Square," says Jennifer Cole Steele, a Federal Hill resident who works as the Rhode Island advocacy coordinator for the Conservation Law Foundation, referring to the city’s most recent epic battle over preservation and development. "People all over town are upset."

FOR ALL of Providence’s idiosyncratic appeal and the reams of national positive press it has received over the last decade, Rhode Island’s capital remains a very poor city that desperately needs to expand its tax base. Considering this, the case can be made that almost any development is good development.

To critics, such reasoning reeks of short-term thinking and low collective self-esteem — like the kind that led some people a few years back to welcome Feldo Development’s initial plan to raze the historic mills of Eagle Square. Putting up a generic shopping plaza, the opponents reasoned, didn’t come close to realizing the potential of the riverfront location. (After a communal uproar, the developer — which claimed at first that saving some of the mills wasn’t economically feasible — proceeded with a revised development that preserved some of the buildings.)

The larger concern now is that the Zoning Board’s approval of the Atwells Avenue development will mark an unfortunate precedent, fostering a series of dubious and overly large projects. There are plans in the works for a multi-story development (six stories, according to Deller) on the site of Rialto Furniture on Atwells Avenue, and some nearby residents fear that such developments will grow in size. As planned, the city’s forthcoming rewrite of zoning ordinances (which Deller hopes to be approved in February or March of 2005) would curtail the Zoning Board’s de facto ability to approve large projects.

For now, though, residents like Ray Perreault, who lives on Knight Street, cite the lack of adequate protection and worry about the vulnerability of city neighborhoods. When it comes to greater density and more development, he says, "It could be part of the natural evolution of the city, or it could be a way for everyone on Atwells Avenue to cash in on Zoning Board changes and print money. Ultimately, if there’s enough money that can be made on this street with simple zoning variances, like dimensional variances, then this street as we know it will disappear. The Zoning Board will just become an ATM, essentially."