12/19/24 Waterfront Commission Hearing Panel & Full Waterfront Commission Meeting

e

e e

oh okay uh good evening everyone we're going to get started we have a a two-part meeting tonight first part is the meeting of the hearing panel which will act on uh a couple of requests for variances that are requested by the applicant and the on the hearing panel includes myself Mr pelli Mrs Griffith and uh Mr Conley so those will be the ones voting and hearing on the U the requests for the variances tonight U on

the hearing panel Mr Hardcastle is a member of the hearing panel but he's not able to make it tonight so I'll run the meeting so uh with that said I'll call the meeting to order and um call the public hearing to open and uh we will uh hear from um information from the applicant in terms of the uh dimensional requests that they requesting there are no use requests that are here everything

that's being in the plan is is allowed under the zoning is just there's some dimensional uh kind of physical variances that are being requested so the applicant would like to come up and explain the variances that being saw

tonight how's that better good evening Nicholas heeman from darl Everett on behalf of Marshall properties uh we are here today seeking uh recommendation from the hearing panel on three variances one related to signage one related to fenestration and one related to parking and we have John Cell who has put together um the renderings and the the pictures that you're looking at here and he'll walk you through uh sort of

what we're requesting on each one as well as the reason why we're seeking the relief here um I think probably makes sense to maybe start with parking then fenra and then we'll take up signage as our third so I'll turn that over to John and he'll walk you through it and then we'll obviously be happy to respond to any questions we do have representatives of Marshall here owners we have our

engineer here as well so we can draw on everyone's expertise uh to get you the information that you need this evening thank you hi good evening everyone again my name is John S with pay zero design um if we could advance two slides please and then we'll come back to these the first two have to do with signage and we'll Circle back to that okay so the first of the three variances that we're requesting has to

do with the parking counts across the the site and I'll just start with the fact that the overall shortfall when we look at parking as a whole across the entire site is just 12 spaces so uh what's required is 2345 what we're proposing is 2333 so just that shortfall of 12 spaces in terms of the specifics of it and why we're hitting that shortfall a part of it is that we're looking at the ratio of

parking for the multif family residential components as a lower ratio than is what is required by uh zoning we're looking at one and a half parking spaces per unit rather than the two spaces per unit which is required we think this is reasonable for the the type of multif family uh housing that we're proposing on the site we have around 60% of the units as either Studio or one-bedroom units so that lower

parking ratio we feel it's Justified and then on the retail side the commercial side of the property we have slightly high parking ratios than what are required by zoning so again when you average them sort of look at that overall count across the entire site we're short just the 12 spaces so why do we want this if we can avoid building the extra parking we would prefer to do so we think the

the parking counts that we're using for the uses on the site are appropriate uh if we have to buy have to build more parking to hit that two two spaces per multif family unit is just going to require that we have more impervious space less open Green Space again just we would rather not not build that additional parking that we don't feel is necessary if we don't so that's the the

parking variants if you could Advance one slide please uh the second variance I'd like to talk about is the uh glazing percentage which is a requirement that comes through the design guidelines um the design guidelines uh are looking for a minimum average of 20 5% fenestration as an average of all sides of each of the buildings that are that are proposed uh the design guidelines also has a

requirement for a minimum of 10% penetration on in the individual wall surface um so what we're what we're proposing is hitting that minimum 25% on all primary frontages of all of the proposed retail buildings on the on the property as we've you know gone through the the exercise of Designing conceptually all the buildings that that areep close that was something that we were able to do as we looked at these

retail buildings though it was difficult to hit that 25% average on all surfaces um we are able to hit the 10% minimum on all all elevations and all of them it's just when you take that Frontage and then the sides that don't hit that 25% it's hard to hit that 25% average um so we have an example on on this slide and uh all the drawings that I'm presenting tonight by the way are excerpted from

the submission package that was submitted last December so not new material it's just been excerpted for the purposes of this presentation this evening so the example with respective fenestration that we have on the the slide here is the grocery store so it's the largest building obviously on on the property you can see that top elevation is the the front the major sort of Frontage of the grocery store we're

hitting about a 30% fenestration percentage on that facade we hit at least 10% on the back right and left sides of it the back we're just at 10% right side we're at 13 the left side we're at 23 so the overall average on that grocery store that we have proposed is about 20% fenestration we look at all wall surfaces and it's the the difficulty here is really that the the buildings that were proposing a retail

or restaurant so there's a certain amount of program with those use types uh that we need some solid wall for so you have you know restaurants obviously back of house for kitchen spaces storage walk coolers things like that that don't lend themselves to penetration similarly on the retail side of things you have a need for backup house space with some solid wall for that storage type function so again hitting the 10%

everywhere hitting the 25% on all major facades just not hitting the 25% average across all that's the relief that we're seeking on what what number are you asking the hearing panel to lower that minimum 25% too are you asking for U them to lower it across the board to 10 or 20 I want to be certain we can pin down a number we're asking for 25% on all the primary customer facing frontages and

then the minimum of 10% on any other bu so minimum of 10% notri correct is that just on the commercial buildings and residential uh you meet the uh the standard um that's this is on the commercial buildings which is where we sort of most scrutinized this and I think this is really where the the design guideline came from was to control the buildings that are you know really sort of seen on

the the visible frontages of the property I would say the residential buildings don't don't really come close to that 25% and I think that 25% came from you know you want to a public commercial building to have a lot of storefront be open to you know what's what's happening around it residential building where you just have punched openings for you know Windows into Apartments you're not going to get

nearly close to a 25% okay so that's those two variances now if we could back up the four slides to the beginning of this presentation we'll walk through the signage variance okay thank you so the requirements for signage we're looking in two two different places for these in the design guidelines it states that signage along the parkway should be limited to the vehicular entrances to

the site and should not be internally illuminated so that's the sort of language in terms of signage that we get from the design guidelines for the metacomet subd district so as we read that it seems to us that some signage at the vehicular entries to the property was contemplated at the time that those guidelines were were written um and then when we look at the East Providence zoning we see that pole signs and

monuments are not permitted in the Waterfront District I think those regulations were you know in place in Britain before the Medicom subdistrict came into being um so there's some question there in our minds as we look at that uh the East Providence zoning goes on to say that signage uh for properties with multiple uses should be incorporated into buildings or should be incorporated into

de decorative wall signs helps screen parking in some way so sort of balancing those those two regulations that we have in front of us we are proposing two Monument signs on the Veterans Memorial Parkway Frontage of the property one at the uh you can see on the graphic the sort of enlargement of the the blowup plan this is the northwest corner of the property with the the pro proposed

rotary so we're proposing one sign a monument sign right at that rotary that would be visible from southbound traffic and then a second sign at the right turn only vehicular entrance further south of that on the property which would be visible from Northbound traffic so we think both signs are uh necessary uh given the the visibility along the parkway if you're traveling Northbound

to get someone to understand what's in the property and to turn right at that right turn only you need a sign at that vehicular entry and then similarly for motorist traveling southbound uh you need a sign at the at The Rotary so that you're coming south through the rotary you see the signage that directs you onto Lion Avenue and into the main vehicular entry to the site on so that's what's being proposed

really the the reason we're asking for the variants here why we need this relief um you know this is a unique property with the 100 foot buffer that that we've been required through the design guidelines to maintain along Veterans Memorial Parkway it means that all the buildings are set well back from the vehicle Frontage to the to the property and further than that you know it's it's really been our incentives

we've planned this property and as we've located the buildings on the property to face them toward the interior of the site bring all the larger buildings toward the middle of the site and and what that's done is is really prevented any visibility from motor on on Veterans Memorial Parkway from seeing the buildings internal to the property so the signage on the parkway is really um

necessary for prospective tenants of the development to have you know just that Basic Marketing function of being able to announce to you know motorist passing on the parkway of their presence within the development further end where you can't see them from from the park okay and and again sort of another way of saying that is that we felt it was more appropriate to have some reasonable signage on the parkway than

it was to plan this development to put all the buildings facing the parkway we thought it was better to pull them back and just announce their presence with some signage next slide please gives a little bit more detail on the signage that's being proposed thank you again this is an excerpt from the uh submission so these drawings were in the original submission uh since last December so the the top

sign is the sign that's being proposed for the location at The Rotary uh it's about 12 feet to the highest point of that sign from grade um it's uh sort of occupies that corner so you see that on the southbound as you come around the rotary as we saw in the previous Slide the sign below that is the sign that's proposed for the right turn only vehicular entrance off the the

parkway the high point of that sign is at about 21 fet um we looked at the East Providence zoning requirements and other uh locations zoned for retail in the city General business for example would allow a sign up to 25 ft so what we propose we feel is reasonable given other regulations in the city um certainly nothing that's beyond any kind of industry standard for retail development of this scale and this and

this scope uh materials of these signs are proposed to match those uh used in the pallet of materials for the Town Center so we proposed a white cedar cedar shingle on these signs incorporating these signs into Fieldstone walls for a decorative element like the base of them lighting is intended to be respectful we took you know seriously the requirement of design guidelines for no internal illumination

we are proposing a Halo lighting behind the the logo and then a top light for the the tenant signage that's Incorporated um again intended to be you know discreet respectful highquality signage in keeping with the the quality of the development with all okay so that's that's what we have for our presentation on the variances certainly happy to answer any questions you might have and thank you all again

for your time this evening uh thank you um so the the larger uh Monument sign is 21 ft at the highest point the taller one yeah they're they're close to the same same overall size but 21 fet the lower sign at the just how wide is it you know the width you have rough idea that one's roughly 9 ft wide all right um any questions from the commission on fenestration parking or any other

issues um so I guess I'll you know we'll open it up for public comment but uh my general opinion is that the two the fenestration and the parking are pretty modest the sign I do have some concerns with just the P size of it uh on the parkway there's nothing on the parkway even remotely close to this and you know that you compare it to other commercial districts in the city but the parkway is

uh is is a little bit different than say Newport Avenue or bucket Avenue so um I I reserve judgment on that until later on but uh there's no other question from the commission members to some members of the public who would like to comment on these uh requests they can come up now and speak vizioli just as they're making their way up my colleague redistributed the Ashley sweet report I believe you've

seen this before it's part of our submission it's part of what's been presented to the planning department on the 9th U so just like that included as an exhibit um it's part of the hearing because it does speak to the variances in addition to what John presented the same subset of content or is there any yeah yeah it's just gives you a full written report um right for quite a bit

so so anybody from the public would like to come and speak Sir Mr Bowden hey thank you Mr chairman members of the committee and hearing panel my name is Dan Bodwin I live at Kettle Point East Providence and I'm also here as a member of keep metac comic Green uh the variances for the fenestration and the parking they seem perfectly reasonable um even the variance for a monument sign seems perfectly reasonable

however it's the size of the sign I have to Echo some of the Chairman's uh comments about that the Vets Parkway is a very special Street and uh the whole idea is to try to make it conform with other signage and you've seen them but there's a picture of all the other signage that's that is a long Mets uh vets so um I'm opposed to the size the sign 21 ft is much larger than any other

sign that's on on the parkway without question also the idea of identifying tenants on the sign is something that's new to the Parkway and there would be a precedent I mean there are other areas for example the uh office condum project next door that might want to say hey I want to identify my my my uh office operations in there so identifying the individual tenants is also setting a

very precedent there's nothing like that on the Parkway right now um there is a stewardship plan for the parkway that you probably heard over the last year and that plan refers to a really desire to try to make signage consistent and make sure that it's athletically aesthetically reflective of the culture and character of the Parkway and a sign of this size certainly does not uh

reflect that um the Rhode Island Scenic roadway board has to approve a lot of the changes that are going to happen and while this sign may be on private property they're going to look at the overall picture in terms of how that roadway is affected and there's a lot of requests to go to the roadway or to approve a lot of changes there and I really think they're going to look at

the overall picture and I don't think they're going to look at this sign very favorably that would that would be my opinion um and finally uh on two occasions the consultant to Marshall had said at public meetings that there's a desire to work with the city to make sure that the sign is in character and in conformance with other signs that are on the Parkway and the consultant specifically referen this the

development to the north the office condominium complex and we've seen that sign as a very low sign that just identifies the complex so that was a developers consultant and that's that's what she said and it's on tape so I don't know where that fits in with the idea of this this sign because it certainly doesn't conform with the other uh signs that are on the parkway that's my comment thank you I think I submitted

that for the record um earlier so you have a copy of that for the record thank you Dan is is your comment only for the 21t sign or for both I mean I other than identifying the the tenants is the is the comment regarding the 12T height yeah I you know the one by the roundabout I for some reason I thought it was closer to the entrance further away from vets this is really the first

time I'm seeing that is right on the roundabout so I think that sign has to be looked at very carefully too in terms of how it fits in with everyone so it is taller than the other signs although it's not 20 ft okay thank you thank you anybody else from the public would like to comment on the request is being granted or requested okay um any questions from the commission members so the people voting

on this include myself Mrs Griffith Mr pelli Mr Conley um you know I think we at least I I get a sense that maybe we have agreement on the two modest uh requests for uh parking and fenestration so um maybe we can take these up separately uh just to uh you know kind of space them out so um is there a motion to uh approve the request for the parking variants a second any discussion on

that I don't have an issue I think the Varan requests are very mod in scope and scale he um just on the parking request variance all those in favor I okay that passes um second variance request on the fenestration um any discussion or concerns about the fenestration that was the request that's being um sort tonight no I think it's sufficient do I have a motion to approve okay second second by Mr pelli all those in

favor I so that passes so uh last issue um the request for the signage variants um I I think I said before the vote I I just this is the first time it's formally been presented to the commission I know we've seen renderings this is the first time it's been presented to the hearing panel um you know I I I probably wouldn't be in favor of this particular uh design right now

maybe there's an opportunity to revisit this or come back with a sign I can understand the trade-off between the buffer and the building's being set back and I understand the commercial interest of having assigned but I think in this case U is is more of a balance that could be sought at a few maybe another rendering another rendition but uh I'll leave it up to the board to make a

motion if they would like to vote on it one way or the other I share your concerns I think the S the sci thecid are just so out of context with the rest of the parkway I concerns about yeah so um I'll ask legal council rather than voting on it for nor one way or the other would it be appropriate to ask for alternative submission at a future date at this point um with the commission meeting

following this hearing panel meeting um my suggest hearing panel is just making

we can either approve or Deni

yeah I think the difficulty is a lot of times in zoning variances you get a you have a zoning table that tells you the degree that it's over or exceeds a standard and you can kind of quantify that here we don't the standard is is fairly uh subjective uh we don't have like a table we can say it's x% over standard signed request so um so I this point um is there a motion to approve or

deny the U sign request for a variance I'll make that motion deny you have a second any other further discussion so I just so the requested variance installation because

I don't know what the applicant like to explain maybe perhaps another U another u l of action so uh m going points out correctly right we need a variance to have a sign without the monument signs of some some agreeable size and format you know the development becomes very problematic right I mean as you know we've SE we're seeking a grocery store that's going to be tucked into the development away from

it fit so we thinking ahead as you said to the full panel certainly we'd rather have more time to work with you on this because a denial of a variance to have a sign at all puts a big wrench in this whole project which I don't think anybody's really looking to do so we're happy to have continuing right well within reason so we're happy to have a continuing discussion with staff and the

board and come up with something on that front a design that's tasteful a design that works um but from a practical P perspective the goals of the Waterfront commission to have this be an economic boom the signs are very very very necessary which I don't think my read is not that you disagree with that my read is that we've got to figure out what the right size of that sign would be I think

it's the just the dimensions and how it really knowing what's uh on the parkway already existing and then driving down that road for the last 30 years just knowing what that would that that that would be a uh you know something that's very unusual and as Mr Bowden said could lead to some other uh request for other tenants that would like to be something similar so um I think you know rather

than voting on it I guess we would uh take a motion to uh maybe defer that to the Waterfront commission and make it a condition of approval um you do have to make a recommendation to the commission either way on this request and um the commission can choose to um Grant the deviation or could choose to defer that until a later meeting so that they so if the commission were to approve the

project and the other two requested uh variances they would then have to come back for a separate meeting maybe with um revised signage plans alternatively if for example the applicant could say we'll agree to shrink the signs by I'm just going to throw out a number 30% or 50 but you know so I think you have a choice I think the applicant has a choice and the hearing panel and the

commission has a choice on how you want to proceed it's it is just important um with signs that we agree on an exact Dimension so if it's going to be different than the dimensions that have been presented we''ve got to um nail that down okay so we have a motion that's been made to uh and seconded to deny the variance um are you suing resend that motion well I I can say you could maybe

just uh deny without prejudice so that they could resubmit um a different sign either design or Dimensions that agreeable yeah I again I think as you pointed out without the table right so I look at it as two components can you have a sign and how big can it be so I think critically if it's the will of the board that it's the size and not the having of the sign that I think an artfully

worded motion that we got to figure out you know it's not that you can't have the sign it's that you take issue with the size of the sign without prejudice that's fine so that we can come back and figure out whether it's 21 feet 18 ft 8T wide 9 ft wide so on and so forth you know there's a lot of things that we can work with you on and trying to get us across the Finish

Line okay so I guess the motion would be as Jennifer made it is to deny the variance without prejudice I'll make that motion I make a motion to deny the variance without prejudice have a second any other further discussion all those in favor I I motion passes thank you for your cooperation on that so uh I'll go ahead and uh take a vote to adjourn the public hearing of the hearing panel all those in favor I

okay thank you hearing for the public hearing for the hearing panel is concluded now we will open up the public hearing on the waterfront commission which uh was noted for 7:30 and it's 7:31 so that's a so uh first order of business Chairman's opening remarks just want to say thank you for for being here on a busy uh holiday season as we approach um upcoming holidays it's not an easy night for people to come in

attend but I appreciate your attendance um first order of business is to uh vote on the approval ad minutes of October 17th 2024 okay any discussion all those in favor I and I just want to note uh as we enter the Waterfront hearing that we do have a quum which includes myself Mrs Griffith Mr parelli Mr connley Mr INR and Mr Oso so we have uh six members of the of the

commission so um first item on the agenda uh after the approval of minutes is new business continuation of public hearing on metacomet property llc's application for proposed development located at 500 Veterans Memorial Parkway uh map 107 block 15 and so on I just want to note that uh the original application that was submitted to this body was in December of 2023 so uh it's been a full year that

we've been here uh addressing this issue so uh with that said I'll turn it over to the applicant for any testimony that I can make thank you again Nicholas heeman from Darrow Everett for the applicant um for this component we have Deborah Cox is here today to give you an update as to where things stand with the archaeological issues State historic preservation um and the hopes we have tonight is as you

noted it's been a year um that to the extent we can get a vote of approval as much as we can get approved today given the situation with the sign um we'd like to try to do that so that we can continue to advance this project down the field so with that ask Deborah to come up and she can share with you where things stand with the archaeological issues good evening so if you remember we conducted

a phase one archaeological survey and identified areas of pre contact or Native American campsites and living areas subsequent to that we went back and did phase two at the request of the state historic preservation commission um in several of the areas that phase two included hand testing and machine stripping we just completed that two weeks ago not quite two weeks ago it's two weeks tomorrow the Native American

representatives from the naraga tribe were with us every day two of them u in some cases they asked us to look at areas that we had not planned to and we complied with that let me start by saying in terms of the results we did not find any human remains or any indication of human burials in the areas that we looked at we did find what we referred to as features living surfaces storage pits

shell pits fire pits um and we actually found indication that the area was traversed by people before 5,000 years ago which I think is what I reported last time I was here so that's not unexpected I think I did say that there were tens of thousands of people living here over 12 to 15,000 years so it only makes sense that we would find indications of human Act ity so right now because we just finished the

material that we did find things like knives Stone knives Stone projectile points um have been cleaned they have not been cataloged we just started our catalog we have sent some um material out to be carbon dated to try and get some exact dates we can look at projectile Point shapes and types and see how U it relates to a known typology and how old it might be so after we catalog

our material and analyze the data we'll be um authoring a report it will be ready probably the end of January that report will be com um submitted to the state historic preservation commission and the next issue is is whether or not any of the area is significant is archaeologically significant so depending on that determination that the state historic preservation commission makes obviously if they determine it's

not significant we are done if they do think there might be some significance in some of the areas um they could request mitigation of the effect of the project on those areas and mitigation is we would excavate gather all the information and then the project would proceed so and the client is certainly prepared to adhere to anything that um the state requests in terms of mitigation options if any of the area is

considered significant there is the question over most of the area of Integrity there's there are pockets of intact soils but for the most part what we did find was um disturbance uh filling cutting that has occurred over the past 125 years so that will all be in our report and we hope to have adequate mapping that will show where those pockets of intact soils are and what they may contain questions thank you um so

basically uh essentially we're you've completed your Field Report you're assembling a written report that will be submitted to um R Allen historic right and uh at the same time uh as that reports being prepared and submitted uh members of the tribe have input into that report as well they do okay and then the final determination about any significance of uh activity lies with the re and Statewide ASB preservation

yes that's correct and then if they do find an area of material significance uh one of the mitigation eort do they do this to restrict development in certain areas or they require further analysis well there's two options here um if there are areas that are not going to be impacted then that would be yet they may ask for example if there is material in the buffer zone where nothing's going to

happen then we don't have to do anything else if there's material of significance that is in the building areas we would they would probably ask us to excavate it all this is a phased approach so we start small and it goes on so we would collect the data before it in a professional manner before it could be destroyed there is also an option of filling so if that is possible in any of

the areas where there may be significant archaeological finds and it could be filled and paved over so the material you found here is is it typical to other areas that you've worked on in rhod island or is it higher incidences of um finding or is it pretty much typical what you typically see uh in similar areas it's very typical um people lived here for 15,000 years so it is very typical

um so when you look at something like that what can it tell us that we don't already know and is it in does it have integrity is it in good shape it's not oops uh a storage pit for example could be completely truncated and so what we have is the bottom of it that really doesn't give us enough information so okay any questions from the commission members just question you you

mentioned it would have to be AC exact dug up yes and then then it's removed it's removed there's another report and that's the end of it any anyone else thank you we'll have a we'll have a opportunity for the public to come up and speak after any other comments well just on the archaeological component I think for purposes of the municipal level I think we've gone about as far as we can go we're going to

submit everything to State historic and then it's going to fall within their just their purview and their jurisdiction as to what if anything needs to be done and we are going to have to work that out with them in the event that it's seem to be a significant area and ultimately we'll have to comply with what um comes down from the state historic so I think in terms of where

we're at I think we we're about as complete as we can get uh at this stage and I think hope it's at a level that's sufficient that the Waterfront commission's in a position to make a decision on this component of it I would equate it to you know needing All State approvals right when you approve a development it's you need physical alteration permit from do you need BM you need State historic um so certainly

a condition of approval that we um comply with how that process concludes I think is fair I think is reasonable and I think it's customary for um developments that are at the stage so yeah I I agree it's there is that is a condition of the design Review Committee that the the applicant comply with the directives of the and historical preservation and Heritage commission con so I you know I that's the

recommendation to the from the DRC to the full hearing for the full Waterfront commission so I can see that sort of the approach will will uh take about this matter so any other testimony from the applicant testimony no like I said to the extent it needs to be done for the separate record we've given you Ashley sweet's report again which speaks to the variant that was prepared for the um for

the hearing panel um but in terms of testimony that would be our presentation for this evening we get to the point of a motion um happy to come back up to make sure that we we're going to be denying the variance without prejudice that we just get that language right for yeah just a couple of questions and notes just to put on the record as as like I said we've been doing this for

over a year very large scale development you know the largest in the city's history and the the development phase is up to 10 years very long period of development um unlike a traditional planning review at the planning board where you have a master plan review which is conceptual and then you come back with the preliminary plan review which has a lot more detail and Engineering allows the board and the

public to comment a little bit more on the project here at the waterfront commission we have this sort of one one step we don't really have it uh segmented with where you have master and preliminary so you know I think the reason why we we spent a year on on this is because we don't before we give uh any votes on this we want to make sure we uh examine a lot of other

possibilities and allow for the opportunity to uh revisit items as the phases they continue uh the other distinguishing part of this project is that uh a lot of the development that we work with in the city is pmer Industrial sites they're somewhat isolated from neighborhoods this is uh not Kettle point this is not East Point this is not some industrial area or Brownfield this is U you know a very active site and a

very active residential neighborhood so I think that sort of uh justifies some of the extended uh review that we've taken here um I just had a couple questions I know on the unit count 890 uh of which uh it was mentioned that about 526 will be Studios or single single bedrooms which will minimize I think the traffic impact but uh is a boat 200 308 and uh 56 two or three

bedroom units which I think are will be built in this L latter phase of development so I see that in phase two phase three of the development 232 of the units will be built I think that's the initial residential phase uh and 660 which will be in U phase four um do you have a sense of timing of when phase three and four will take place or is that sort of Market Ren

all can probably answer that

question good evening Paul Pisano with Marshall property it's kind of a tough question to answer at this point because of total scale and who's going to come out of the woodwor first I would say that um you know it'd be at least three four years into it once we got all of and so forth that would start recognizing or looking towards that for if you will certainly if opportunities

present themselves sooner we would like to come back and petion the board and try to move forward with it but it's kind of hard at this point with the environment look into the crystal ball and speculate exactly when Happ yeah so I guess it would fair to say that the initial Construction the site would be the commercial aspect and then residential will be secondary yeah so right now in that uh first phase of

construction uh there would be a residential component of 230 or so if you will but it would be predominantly the infrastructure the roads in the and then I noticed on the uh at least initial uh submission that was prepared by uh rest in Sams um the uh there were there were number of Agri ciruit units too I think about 240 uh which I think are more towards the later phases is that still contemplated as a

uh of a business decision of the development again there uh that area you were talking about at one time was uh perhaps assisted living for contemplating which is still very much in play I think uh once we're so fortunate to get an approval on it there would be a lot more people coming forward to have the discussions with us but there has been some interest in the community that we've expressed uh but

that is still yet to be defir exactly yeah I mean what as you know one of the things that you're both very familiar with is that the approval uh of this project uh lies with the property not who owns it so you have to kind of be mindful who eventually will be partnering with you or assisting with you in this development so just want to kind of put some clation on

these things so and one of the other questions I had was I know in part of the city council approv there was a donation to the city that was contemplated I think I'm Fort and lion oh for yeah Forton yeah I think Fort and Mercer sort of that area that only takes place upon the approval of a development plan is that correct I want to uh defer to spe specifics of that but it's my

understanding that in the decision that was uh given to us upon approval of this particular project by this commission that that plan should be conveyed to the city yeah I think I think it was conditioned on development approval so we could certainly ask the city solicitor 9.6 acres in the Northeast portion it runs down Fourth Street down to I think benty and then um also on some a little bit on Lion as well so

right and that would be a public ax Point obviously once it turned over the city but what the trigger point of it is in terms of timing I think is spelled out in the yeah city ordinance yeah I think I had I think I remember something about a u approval of a development plan so I guess we could ask the city solicitor would would constitute that um and last question on the residential

piece it seems like most of it is rental not necessarily homeowner at least the initial the rent initial counts are mostly multif family rental the majority of them our rentals but we are contemplating a condominium uh area that uh would be in that CL phas and then you've said on the record before that you adhere to the 10% aable of housing uh inclusionary portable Housing Development that's

correct um any other questions from the commission members um I was just reviewing the zone change ordinance and you your recollection was correct the land donation of that area is the city Council said that should be a condition to approval of any development plans for the property um also for the public it's important for the public to realize that any changes to this property that differ

from the plans that were presented I think in any I'll say any material or any significant way would have to come back before this commission so um excluding the monument sign which I guess we'll get to in a moment if if the um applicant or a subsequent owner of the property wants to change anything in a in a way that conflicts with any approval that would have to come back before the commission and there are a

number of there will be a number of um conditions to an approval including receipt of any and all state and federal permits um there were a number of conditions recommended to the commission by the DRC and um questions were raised regarding who would be responsible for enforcing those conditions the Waterfront commission is the approving Authority for this property you're the authority with jurisdiction so it would

be up to the Waterfront commission to enforce any conditions of approval but obviously partnering with City staff since we don't have our own you know building official or engineering department we rely on the city for that so to to answer the question of who who's going to be responsible for ensuring that all these conditions are met the answer is the Waterfront commission is okay uh any questions or comments

from the commission um I'll uh invite members of the public to come and and speak and ask a question

thank you Mr chairman uh my name is Candy seal East Providence resident with keep metacomet green as you've mentioned Mr chairman uh this application has been before you for a year as uh Mr bodman mentioned the monument sign at the corner of Lion Avenue and the parkway this is the first indication we've had in a year that that will be the location of that sign every other plan showed it at the entrance to

the property on Lion Avenue which was quite a distance from the rotary itself I urge you not to approve this tonight to have another discussion about the signage its location its size I to have this sprung upon us at the very last minute I don't think is appropriate thank you for your time anybody else from the public would like to speak just come on up you can stand in line if you want so take your

turns he andreid um East Providence resident kmg director where does the um I want to know where the where does the Veterans Memorial Parkway come in in this plan you guys haven't discussed it tonight so and plus you need the the real borders right I haven't I haven't seen one yet I know you've brought this up a number of times Heather and you're asking I think for survey markers of the

parkway yes I am they own the property and also your discussion of the use of the property by a developer I mean that doesn't where where do the residents come in I know we've been over this the use of the of the the the allowed uses of the property was was decided at the zoning pange that the city council made in 2001 I think it was so that that though that what what is allowed as a

use has already been approved and voted on as far as residential commercial that's all been you know that's that was set in a zoning so uh what they've applied for is entirely an allowed use there's really no question about what they use they don't need to ask for specific approval for the uses because the plan that theyve submitted is is uh in line with the allowed uses of the property right

but you know I'm asking about the boundaries of the Veterans Memorial Parkway there's only a topographical um map made so don't you think that you we should know what we're cutting into what we're using which land we are using who owns that land before somebody comes and destroys it I don't know how honestly I don't know how anybody got into those and could cut into do included cut into those

triangles that are over 100 years old who where is the permit well again the uh for my understanding is and I'll allow uh legal counsel R to re you know help help me explain uh my understanding is that the highway the parkway is owned by DM but it's managed by do is that essentially how it is or it may the other way around you may have that the other way around but that's I think the

relevant question for the commission is do we have a survey of the property that's under the commission's jurisdiction a survey of metac comet's property or Marshall's property known as metacomet was submitted with the application so the boundaries of the roadway are not relevant to the commission's decision unless the state comes in and says hey we have a survey we we disagree with the surve survey

that's been submitted or another adjacent private property owner I don't think we have that here am I mistaken that the DC uh included the Veterans Memorial par in that plan right in their approval or the planning board should I say discuss it at the BRC the uh the survey that was completed was completed by a surveyor they have title insurance on that surve I'm not talking about I'm talking on the survey

so let me finish okay sorry so the question is it's this property was properly surveyed they have title insurance on it and the property is what's in question not the parkway so anything that's being changed they have to prove so anywhere where the roundabout is will be part of their survey but the property itself was surveyed submitted and insured I think I'm being good I I want to know see as how they're

going to be using they want to change the Parkway right Marshall wants to change the Parkway right they want to use that land I what are the the parkway's boundaries on both sides I believe in order for the change of land they need the approval of state do to do that so that that would something they' have to seek approval from the state for to uh use that portion of the road that state

land to uh create a rotary then the other boards can't include the approval with Veterans Memorial Parkway in it until they get that right I think in one of the conditions of the design Review Committee was that the applicant will receive final approval necessary permits from All State agencies including ra and Department of Transportation cenic roadways commission and the crmc so I

think that's pretty much the extent that we could B the applicant as far as their ability to make those changes to the Parkways to seek those consents from those governing body that oversee it okay thank you so as part of the DRC Crossman made several presentations regarding roundabout and the process in which we started with we're continuing with and what ultimately approvals that we have to get

before anything can be approved that process is in is in play right now it's a condition as Mr fioli just mentioned on the approval of the project so that round about will not be constructed until we get 100% approval from Rhode Island dot in historic um Scenic Highway and anyone else associated with it so that process um it it's not in our control we've submitted the paperwork uh

not we I'm speak Crossman has submitted the paperwork so ultimately when we get those comments back that will guide the direction of that work so it's a condition if we don't get the approval it doesn't meet the condition please introduce yourself name is Kevin Stinger um when East Providence resident and from what you've just been saying kind of interesting that um if they don't get the

roundabout then there's going to be some kind of alternative entrance into the new development uh number one uh number two the development itself um and they were just talking about it tonight that um the Native Indians they weren't here to uh put their input as to what was actually found on the property um that would determine whether or not there would be any different situations as far as the development of the

property um that kind interested me uh uh I live in the for Street Lion Avenue uh area and I've noticed that there's been uh a lot of work done they've been cutting trees and uh doing development or not development but they've been doing a lot of things in the area that's supposed to be kept as natural uh just kept natural um and I know for fact that there's there was an owl nest

in the area and I don't know where the owl has moved now I know it did move from the area of that corner down near the school and now I have not heard it in quite a while so there's a lot of things that are going on that U that bother me as far as the whole you know developing developing this uh area on top of the fact that I don't think we need need another

uh another grocery store in the area um I think there's a lot of vacant storefronts in the area already I know there's a lot in Riverside there's a lot in these Providence that um I I really don't think that that we need this um right now and uh this is these are things that have been bothering me that I've seen on the internet and which finally forced me to

come in here tonight and to uh talk to the council and um you know hopefully that you'll you know you'll think about it and see that maybe some of the things that um that I'm seeing that are making sense and I want to thank you for your time I I thank you for coming uh I think I just want to clarify a few things so I I believe the U representative of the

Native American tribe have been involved in the archaeological dig so they've had input into the uh the report and I and I know that there's been some clearing um of utility line near the utility lines there some tree clearing over the last year or so um but that work's not been performed by Marshals right that's by national Rhode Island energy whatever they're called so if I'm not correct

please please um and then um so there is there has been trees cut kind of where the the towers are but that's really um the national Red Island energy um has an easement where they can clear those the power lines are but I I don't recall of any trees being cut within the property or within the buffer you you drop something behind you so uh so yeah but you bring up good

points you know yeah and uh uh I understand that U you know it's a big change for the neighborhood and a big change for the community uh in terms of uh having a site that's been uh you know passive Recreation for over 100 years uh to do something that's not uh passive Recreation and uh we can argue about the uh uh need for a grocery store but uh it's really an allowed use and it's

their decision if they would like to invest their money that way that's you know that's that's what they do so but go ahead I'm uh my name is Rory Miller um I have a uh a business in store with Frontage on Veterans Memorial Parkway and I drive by this property every day um I also happen to make quite a bit of signs for businesses and this conversation about the size of the

signage caught my eye um we talked about the relevance of comps in the city and the size of signs and a lot of the areas where you just talked about the speed limit is 25 miles an hour um somebody can correct me if I'm wrong was this or tell me is the speed limit stay 40 mph on Veterans moril so that has a pretty large bearing on the size of a sign um and if it is

the intent of the commission to preserve the economic viability of the commercial sore in that area um honestly even with the size of the sign as it is what they're proposing at 40 miles per hour if you have text that is 9 in tall which I've been looking at the text here on all these things the crescent Park our own City's City Hall the front of this building talking about in some cases Tex

that is nearly 2 feet tall um and again that's viewed at 25 miles an hour at 40 miles per hour 9 in tall text which is not that big but that's about what you're going to get when you actually write out um across the width of the sign they're describing you'll be able to see it for 7 point read it for 7.7 seconds that is actually a very very very short period of time and uh that's

about 450 ft away where it will be actually visible to somebody to make a decision am I on to make a turn or not I think it the speed of that road has to be considered in the size of the sign if you intend to have people being able to actually use a sign in a functional way you can't shrink it down it just does absolutely nothing except for M up of

space with a blurry thing you can't read until you're right on top of it something to consider if you want to actually connect the dots between something that's functional and and not um I as I said and this this is something that's even going on with our building and our tenants that want open up a creative co-working space our sign just for one thing which is two words is like 9 feet

across and that's just one occupant with nine inch tall letters um right at Veterans memoral Parkway so um I I hope that's helpful in thinking about the viability I a small business owner and also as a landlord for small businesses every little thing you know this Death By A Thousand Cuts um it will be really uh challenging if they don't have a sign that is actually functional so uh I

appreciate it thank you did you do those calculations in your head Rory just know uh chat GPT okay okay great G say that that's pretty impressive so anybody else please come up and introduce yourself hi my name is Katie um I I'm terrified I've never done this before um I have been one of the many people that have been behind computer screen super upset about this and I decided that had so many questions that

a lot of us have um and I've I've not attended before which is shame on me but um you know one of my concerns is would the children that go to school over there they would go to Hennessy correct most likely yes okay um so the the reading and the math levels there already on the lower side I'm just nervous that if we have more more bodies in the classroom it's going to take away from the

children that have you know benefit from the smaller size um like the that's one of my concernes but um we also can't figure out a traffic circle right now so it creates a whole lot of traffic as it is is it's just a Parkway is like open open Scenic land and it's just ripping it all away and then if like the traffic already is atrocious um who decides the does Marshall decide the rent for the tenants

yeah these are private private properties so they decide the red what is considered um a low I don't think I'm saying it right portable housing yeah so essentially it's there a state law that dictates that the housing units the rent uh can't exceed uh 30% of the person's income and they have to have an income that's either between 80 and 100% of the area meeting income 80% % limit for rental units so you know so

if there you take you take a a survey of the immediate neighborhood and say that you know the average income is 20 $50,000 for family so um they'd have to do the math and say well somebody making 80% of that the rent can't be more than 30% of that person's income that that's that's I know affordable housing gets the the difficult concept people uh you know think what what exactly it is but

essentially the state law gives you the range the percent of income that's so the people made in the are that make in the area so uh they'd have to take a look at the median income in the Fort Street area Lion Avenue Mercer Street you know Juniper Mercer and then you know the the rent can exceed the 30% of whatever that their May the monthly income is I believe it's it's actually based um

Less on what the immediate neighbors make and and more on census unit area which I think we're in the same unit as River so there is a um there is a neighborhood basis to it but it is not I think as granular as surveying the N I just want to make sure they don't expect um to be surveyed I'm sorry so there is a there is a benchmark of has to reflect

the uh incomes within the area Okay will small businesses be able to afford rental space there talk so much about our community and like supporting mom and pop shops and like you said earlier this is a huge difference for a neighborhood that's got lots of kids lots of families lots of animals and it's massive it's just huge um so I I can't imagine that rent for a small business would ever be

obtainable which doesn't really support locals yeah I I don't know what the rents for commercial where we don't have any control over well I understand that but it's just I think your point being that uh if what impact it would have on small businesses uh the city does have a couple of areas corridors that are doing pretty well uh tracking small businesses Twan Avenue BS Point Avenue Waterman

Avenue is becoming quite a active area with small locally owned businesses is so you know I think the city's been able to attract that and and show that it's a market and I think one of the one of the best things you can do for small businesses to uh attract customers and uh that means people you know and I think a city where the population's been stagnant for number of years the more

people you can bring in that you know can support a local business is really the best way to help a local business at least in my opinion you know it's just kind of hard to support local businesses when there's big box stores around that have cheaper better prices because it's just easier but um I actually had one last question um how is emergency services going to handle the influx of of

residents because we already rely on Mutual Aid a lot yeah that that is a good point I know there was a presentation by the uh fire department uh I think it was at the uh DRC last week last month or whatever it was so I don't know if you want to comment on that Steve yeah they made a presentation on the impact of the amount of residents customers tenants and the impact on the

community and part of that report also addressed how many schoolage children would be put back into the system what the impact would be on fire police Etc um and and all of those reports are available on the waterfront commission site and they felt that they um weren't detrimental to the to the community already relying on Mutual Aid a lot this this building is also as part of that report it also

talks about the amount of income that the project is going to generate which will offset some of the additional costs that would need to be from education fire and police so those reports are available to read uh we have reviewed them as part of the DRC and felt that they were acceptable from our end and then you know I know uh you know I obviously we all live in the city

We're All City residents and we see the uh increased calls for ambulance services and we do see the reports of uh Mutual Aid and I you know it's it's it's something I wrestle with because you know we have 3,000 less people living in our city today than we did in 1980 so it's kind of hard to understand why there's such a demand on our Public Services when there's physically less people um speaking to Public Safety

officials over the years I think uh the um um aging population certainly is a big part of it is that we have an older population that requires higher services but I think people tend to call the fire department a little bit more frequently now than they did say 10 or 20 years ago for maybe 911 when it's not necessarily an emergency service but you know obviously if they call they have to

respond so uh I I think that's part of the explanation I I've seen that happen in uh a number of cities around Rhode Island so but it is something that we're very concerned about uh we we we do hear the input from the fire chief I spoke to him uh quite a bit after his report and if there is a need for additional Services um I mean the city council will

have to uh take that up in budget deliberations thank you no you did you did a fine job you shouldn't have anybody

else hello again thanks for the opportunity thanks for listening to me Dan Bodwin Kettle point and also keep metac com at Green um just a couple of of comments um I really want to thank the members of the design Review Committee I don't know how many meetings you had but they were really very informative and very open and transparent and it was it was a good process and I want to congratulate the

the Committees about that and thank them for the many hours of service um I do have a couple of specific ideas on your conditions um um one condition three talks about updated noise and traffic and public sector impacts upon completion of various stages of the project and it reads uh bear with me here earlier to occur a completion of phase two or the beginning of phase three and I'm going to suggest that the

most important study in the interim period will be upon completion of phase two the commercial area that's what you really want to measure in terms of noise and Tra traffic and if for any reason phase three starts before phase 3 ends which is a possibility then uh that's not what is reflective in your condition so that could be one change to to consider the other one is on number 10

where you talk about the state agencies that are um have to be approved and you mention ryot and crmc and you mention other agency but you don't mention specifically Dem and I think it's important that Dem gets recognition after all they're the ones who took title to the Veterans Memorial Parkway from the Metropolitan plan commission back in the 1930s so that whole area is really co-managed by ryot and Dem I

think on an equal basis sometimes you're not sure who you got to talk to for what even but I think everyone should understand I think demm is going to play a large role should play a large role in what happens to the vets um then I have a couple of comments about pedestrian ways and connections and how it may relate to um you can't see this but this was the plan that was attached to the zoning

ordinance as a condition that the city council said as condition um let's see number seven that the property owner will integrate pass throughout the development constructed and maintained at their expense providing for connectivity between the property and the abing neighborhoods and it goes on to say the pass will be shown on plans as approved by the city now there was a plan attached to that it's recorded in

City Hall and I don't know if that's the plan that they were referring to but there are differences between this plan and what is actually um presented at Marshall that's in front of you one of the biggest differences the plan calls for connection between Fort Street and Bentley Street pedestrian connection into the project and through the project and you would think that's something

that everybody wants connectivity to the neighborhood but I think the plans right now just show an emergency access point there it doesn't really show a pedestrian way that comes in off the that Fourth Street neighborhood so I think that's something that you should look at the plan also calls for a walkway between the golf course and along the edge of the golf course and along the edge of the developed area

this the plan that's in front of you takes that about half the way but not the whole way and then the third thing is the plan shows the connection across the highway I'm sorry the parkway um by the amphitheater area over to the East Bay Bike Path Park uh parking lot now um the suggestion of that pedestrian way is was also made by par engineering that that be looked at closely par engineering of course was

your peer review engineer he worked for the commission and then the planning department also suggest that that could be looked at closely so I'd be interested maybe it's not your role but I'd be interested in seeing if that could be looked at I think some cases it's just been discarded saying oh the site distances aren't right or whatever but I think it requires some detailed evaluation the more safe pedestrian ways

we can make between this Development Across the parkway is positive and it's going to be very challenging with that that b Lane roundabout and four lane Highway Parkway sorry again um so I I hope that that can be encour and just take a take a good look at it what are the Alternatives and is there a way to connect over the Parkway in that area because there's only two lanes of

traffic there so that's makes it easier just on that service so those are my comments Dan that you bring up these points and I think you would agree a lot of these things that you're bringing up usually uh can be vetted out more at the preliminary plan you know process once you get to more detail engineering so uh we don't really have that step here at the waterfront level so we have to build

in some ways to continue to keep dialogue going at some point so I think that's the spirit of what you're trying to do is to uh uh even though it's not in front of us today how do we U you know keep those elements um relevant as the development continues yeah um the encouragement of that four Street connection I'm not sure why that's not in the plan I mean it would seem to

benefit everybody so I don't know why it's I me the reality is is that if and when the city takes over that chunk of property there in Fourth Street know the fence will come down the barb wire fence will come down and I assume uh the city's parking and Recreation Department will allow you know for some access on Fort Street or Bentley Street into the development area so um well if if there

is a tie in there like maybe access that leads to a parking lot right that's that's the issue okay but anyway thank you once again um he any other questions Rory I just I wanted to touch upon the issue of Housing and since it was brought up by the other speaker and I thought it maybe to connect another dot um you know property values in East Providence have gone up 69% in the last

five years of largely of which has been passed along to the same extent to renters and um something as I we've talked about them being here for a year and all these gentlemen are not working for free and and ladies um which adds to the cost of that project and we all if it's not explicitly obvious all those costs get added to the development which then gets put into their required rate

of return which ultimately gets passed on to the renter whether it be the small business or the tenant and I'm wondering if if if I was on this commission I think it would be an interesting question to ask is how can we make it a more affordable project for them to develop so that way we can get concessions for the tenants by bringing down their cost at for example parking parking spots have a dollar value It's

usually the going market rate is like $4,000 sometimes $6,000 per parking space that's a substantial amount of money and if the Del do are they absolutely needed and if we give them more parking relief what can be passed on to create sustainable long-term savings for people who can potentially occupy those spaces um the more time we add to this how much time does that add to their cost and how much time how much

does that get added on perspective occupants so how can we make this moving forward as quick and expedient as possible to reduce the cost for them and also reduce the cost for the ultimate end users which are the people of our community who have already experienced tremendous housing um unsustainable housing cost gains um the whether that be parking relief whether that be what happens if they're

allowed to add another 40 units or 10% more units can we get a concession that says yeah we do 15% of just that kind of conversation needs to be had because that's the kind of negotiation we'd be having a sign come on like it's money that is being torn out of the pockets of average East Providence citizens because there's not enough housing we're only going to put people and let people stay

in this city if we give them a place to live and when we're making it more expensive for people who are trying to do it who are we serving I mean the community it's not going to be us it's going to be people coming in that can afford this new price of the community and so anyways I want to I want to have a day where my kids the kids of My

Little League team all of us can afford to be in this city that only happens when we connect the cost that we put on people trying to invest and get their required rate of return and what they can ultimately provide at that price of investment so um anyways I don't know if that helps or looks at it in a little bit different light but I I'm not it's I'm not trying to put money in any

anyone's pocket by any means but I'm trying to put it in the citizen Pockets which is uh we're kind of on the we don't have a choice if we want to live in the city right now we just have to keep on putting the bill so thank you thank you there's somebody else no that's hi my name is Denise list I live on uh South Broadway um development is car F but that's moot

because I don't think you really care about the residents um but I'll have to tell you the wildlife there is incredible to see great blue heron erets Mad Ducks um you know at the edge of my property I can walk down to the water and I kayak there and there's a horrifying amount of of trap in that Cod and I can only imagine what's going to happen once there's constru C and you

know there's open dumpsters and people having lunch I mean will this property be held responsible for keeping that Waterway clean it's also an estuary which is a very very important part of the environment and I'm not looking forward to hearing noise and backup trucks beep beep beep for years and years and years and the amphitheater pointed right in my backyard so I'd like you to consider

these things and certainly most importantly to hold Marshall properties accountable for what they will be doing to that code uh what ampi Thea are you referring to no uh there is on this property some acoustic U small not like a big Amphitheater that there's a proposal for an ampi theater across the street someday down by the B Point project yeah so yeah yeah so right right yeah that's uh that hasn't

even come before us important thing to me right now is to be responsible for the beautiful the amazing Wildlife that have bought their property and also to what they're using for weave you know Round Up is it a natural product I mean as a resident yeah I I assume yeah really bother me but that shows you how that gol force and how will it affect my property value not not not right

yeah I mean I I can't really speak to the type of landscaping material they'll be using but I assume the golf Quest over 100 Years of operation used some sort of um chemicals or whatever so I I don't know if that'll be a drastic change in what you've experienced but the uh portion of the development is really not going to be anywhere near the Cove it's really going to be Upland up

more towards Fort and lion trash fly okay will they be held accountable well they've they've U right where does that come

from of of that Cod and they should be held account for the trash that's going to blow and that they their dumpsters should be closed yeah there is a requirement our where the dumpsters are screened and closed and and obviously they can't have free flowing um debris um you know all I can say is that I'm familiar with the Cove I walk the bike path myself quite a

bit and I do see a lot of wildlife there yes um you know especially early in the morning when there's not a lot of other activity in the area but you know the golf course did operate for 100 years so um as a pretty intense commercial Enterprise They had a banquet facility a dining hall um there was activity there and um I think the property you know for overall is maintained a certain Natural

State and I think that the fact that half of it still going to be a golf course and if the golf course ceases to exist I believe the property has to go into a conservation easement where no development can take place uh with existing nin hole golf courses so I I think we as much as we can protect that area from development okay thank you for list my

concern Mr chairman Andy seal again thank you for a moment uh kmg submitted a memorandum on the historic significance of the Veterans Memorial Parkway I request that that be made part of the record thank you you okay I think you emailed that to Ry right I did yes okay thank you thank you I'm sorry to bother you no no not a b but I probably should have waited till the end anyway to to listen to

everything but uh one of the things that uh interested me was you said that Marshall would be the ones that would be the ones that would uh determine what the rents would be so if their rents would be too high for uh small business to afford then you're looking at more vacant stor funds number one then number two the other thing that uh young lady with the red hair the

festive red hair brought up was the uh schools and uh whether or not they'd be able to uh able to uh sustain the additional people that would be uh coming into the area but those are the other two things that I no very good points I mean again um um I mean I think everyone can I think recognizes that with the lower population we also have a drastically lower School enrollment uh back in 20

2000 and 2001 the school enrollment was about 6,600 kids in in East Providence um the last set of numbers I had from 2023 to 2024 about 5300 so um enrollments are lower than they have been um people just aren't having as many children as possible uh number of these units are one or two bedroom units so uh ially don't lead to a lot of school age children and even if they did

I'm okay with additional kids in in the city I know it's a very controversial statement but uh I I find kids uh you know rather amusing so even I'm Renee chin live at Kettle point I have more of a process question and attorney going you did address it a little bit um this evening but there's a lot of approvals happening with conditions and when this happens Marshall must do this or there's this

condition and I as a former project manager and process person I sit in the audience and I say but who's watching that who's knowing that all of these conditions are met if they change the plan how do we know that they change the plan like what are the controls that are in place to ensure that every condition you know you're approving things with conditions how do we know that those

conditions are happening or if the plans change that they are coming back to the commission with the revised plans I I just need to as a resident understand what those controls are to ensure that all those things do indeed happen yeah I mean I I'll I'll start and Emy you can add in but you know as the being in the planning department with the city that as a development comes in

to build issue pull a building permit typically uh the the Waterfront Commission Executive Director has to sign off on their permit as it's filed with the city in building inspector and it's actually an automated system that that permit is rooted automatically to the executive director and he has to sign off or he or she has to sign off on that permit and as part of that due diligence there is a process to make

sure that whatever conditions have to be met before building can commence that these things are in place and a lot of times permits are held up because they haven't met the conditions and I can I know that for a fact is taken place at Kettle point at each point so there are mechanisms in place to ensure that uh uh any development that U deviates from the plan that was approved that was

submitted to a public body has to you come in place I think Mr Miller probably has experienced with her a plan was submitted then it get you some it just gets held up and U so there are checks and balances with that so I know firsthand but Amy if you wanted to add anything um only thing I have to that only thing that I have to add to that is that each of the state agencies that

have jurisdiction over this project have a similar uh process for enforcement and review um to ensure development doesn't take place without the required permits and if it has then there's a process in place for that are the 10 conditions that the DRC put on the approval permit related though or are they just more General they're all permit related all 10 of them are permit related so

that so the applicant's going to need to provide us either revised drawings written approval or I'm sorry not written approval written documentation of how they addressed each one of those items uh they can do them one at a time they can do all 10 as we go but similar to the process that we went through in the DRC we kind of went from the top and checked them off so as as they feel they

get through the process they'll they'll come in we'll review them make sure we'll check that one off and we'll just keep moving until they satisfy all the requirements as Mr FY always says it it won't go forward to permit so we we we the problem is we just can't keep having all these meetings until they need to time to respond so if we just we could continue to have these meetings in perpetuity so by putting

these requirements in place we give them the opportunity to respond I think for a project of this scope it's also reasonable for the Waterfront commission to consider say in 2025 you know we ask the applicant to provide the Waterfront commission with monthly status updates on you know status of required state permits and then the Waterfront commission can then communicate that to the public on

whatever basis is appropriate monthly quarterly however fast or slowly things are progressing reports are always good anybody else from the public the applicant like to make any closing

remarks I don't know what more I can say that hasn't been said over the last 11 months or I think we were talking earlier that we started all this in 2019 um I think this has been about as well vetted a project that a public body can do um we've tried to be as responsive as we can um that Golf Course was not a part of the original proposals that we

made there were uses in the zone change process that were removed because of responsiveness to concerns from the public um everything about this project uh has been done in collaboration might not be perfect I'm not sure that I know what perfect would be um but I think it's a great project for the city of East Providence it's a certainly a generational project for everybody involved including the commission and if

you know obviously we can answer any questions if the public comment generated any additional questions that the commission had um but we are hoping that you'll approve the variances obviously we you know the signage is something that we still have to deal with this evening but we would request an approval from the commission subject to the conditions and subject to the state approvals and subject to uh

Landing the plane on the size of the sign so that we can continue to move this project forward we can continue to generate economic uh impact that will be favorable not just to the city but to the entire State um and get going I mean we want to get going on this the next phases of the project and I think the phase one aspect of it which is the golf course which has been approved and which

has been under operation is reflective of the quality um of what this whole project will be about not everyone's a golfer I understand that but if you've had the opportunity to experience it it's been First Rate um and everything about this will continue to be um in terms of just the small business component of it I mean part of our work over over the last year has been very much reflective

of the fact that we don't intend this to be just big box real uh retail it's intended to be small business it's intended to have local business Rhode Island is a small business State it's a hard place for big box to make it work it's a hard place for chains to make it work whether there are stores or restaurants so this development and its tenant base will be reflective of the

city of East Providence it will be reflective of the State of Rhode Island um nobody wants empty storefronts especially the people that are investing millions of dollars to make this project happen so that Mr chairman if there are any other questions we have our Engineers we have our historic consultant we have our development team um if there's anything more that you feel remains unanswered um

across this entire process and we thank the commission and all the subcommittee work that's been done um to get us to this point thank you I don't have any additional questions so so if the commission approves this without the requested Monument sign variance is the um expectation that the applicant would come back to the commission for a public hearing before the hearing panel and then the

Waterfront commission just on that variance I think that would be the only thing left on the table um whether you do it as it's approved and we can't build the sign until we've got an approval for the size of the sign um I think that would work um we just I don't want to have to meet Amy the substantial change threshold because obviously it's not like we just tried to

Ram this home after months and months of being told no it's too big no it's too big no it's too big so that sign we were actually looking through it while we were here tonight has been in the original plan I know it came up but we never saw it before from some comment but the signage has been in the presentation um all along the way so we'd like to get that right certainly um

whether it's as a condition of that component maybe that's the most efficient before the sign goes up we come back to the commission for approval of the of the dimensions of it I I I think that's uh a prudent way to proceed so I think like you said we've had u 11 12 months of uh meetings and subcommittee meetings and I I don't I don't remember how many peer review studies we've had had Ray but probably

uh you know more than ever than any other uh yeah so um it's been uh thoroughly vetted we've had uh numberous iterations the traffic study uh the public impact study the public safety study um so I think uh at least I'm at a point where I'm satisfied that the applicant has made a good faith effort to uh address the concerns and still uh even if there is a vote tonight there's

still 10 or 11 items that they have to um adhere to in order to move ahead so um I know that the design Review Committee sent the Waterfront commission The Advisory opinion to recommend approval um with the 10 conditions so um I know that that was discussed at the uh DRC uh on December 9th so um that will be part of the record um so the conditions U include a planning board recommendation of consistency with the

comprehensive plan I believe that's occurred uh Keith the hearing hearing panel approval of variances so that partially took place tonight updated noise traffic and public impact studies upon the earlier to occur of completion of phase two or the commencement of phase three that the proposed roundabout on the veterans Mario Parkway containing The Pedestrian walkway allowing access to the East Bay

Bike Path contingent upon approvals of wall State agencies that a construction management plan be developed by the applicant submitted to the commencement of construction of phase two the applicant shall hold in informational meetings with members of the public to discuss the proposed construction management plan following it sub mittle to the city and building department and fire department uh the applicant shall

comply with all directives of the RO and historical preservation and Heritage Commission in connection with and in response to the archaeological survey andu by the at the property all interior roadway construction and underground and above ground infrastructure located with both inside and outside the boundaries will be subject to the approval of these Providence Public Works Department water

department Engineering Department fire department as applicable the applicant shall utilize a condominium H own Association agreement satisfactory with a waterfront commission that will include but limited to to the following of Maintenance of landscaping streets storm water basins utilities crash removal Public Access and open space the applicant will identify the pre-qualification services and ongoing

certification for the need provided of onsite 10% affordable housing um just maybe add the word inclusionary there if that's okay and then the applicant will receive the final approval with necessary permits the ascent from State agencies including Red Island do Scenic roadways commission and the castal resource management Council and I don't know if do you have a objection to adding R Allen DM for any involvement at

all if applicable if applicable yeah I mean you need demm approvement if you need DM yeah yeah it's under cmc's jurisdiction but you know if there's any need for DM you know but I think they seeded oversight to crmc so so then one other potential condition of approval would be with regard to the monument signs if the commission wants to grant that iation for that type for two of those type of signs with the

condition that the applicant shall um the DRC shall approve a revised signage design you could do that yeah as a say Comm condition number 11 so I think it would probably have to be the DRC and then the Waterfront commission okay and again the issue with the sign was this the this the complexity of this project is was vast so focus on the sign wasn't really until I actually looked at

it looked at it you know and then kind of put it in my head what it looked like tonight and the proximity of the parkway so it wasn't U it was just really just something that was not really 100% focused on even though it was on the plate plans for and that wasn't to be critical that was just to respond to the idea that it had been said not by the commission that we just invented this

this evening um we have no problem having a further discussion on the dimensional aspect of the signs right and the only thing I would suggest is that in the um item uh decision uh Point number five where they discussed the construction management plan can we add and and uh provide updates to the Waterfront commission as requested can those be written updates yeah and then obviously if you want us

to appear you could notice us that that makes sense do we um close the public hearing do we take a vote in public hearing I always get that you can take a you can take a ask for a motion to close the public hearing well I have a motion to close the public hearing that motion second by Dominic all those in favor thank you so with that said uh

we've had U 12 months of uh this project under review like I said it's it's a for a number of reasons very complex quite involved project um and also we have to take into consideration other development that's happening in the city uh down at w Trail up at um East Point on Newport Avenue there's just a tremendous amount of housing that's taking place in the city so I think that's why the U methodical approach of

this was to not just see the impact within the Waterfront or in this media neighborhood but Citywide what's happening in terms of development um and there's you know Arguments for and against various development but I think uh for a community to be uh experiencing this level of investment I I think it speaks to the health of the community I think it speaks to the confidence of the

community that U people are willing to put money into the community because they feel this is a um a fiscally and economically sound place to make investment so uh with that said I'll take a a motion to uh um approve the uh applicant requests based on the 11 Rec U that we cited U the 10 that were included by the DRC plus the addition of um requiring um uh written updates and I

think was 11 11 was U sign signage coming back to the DRC so I have a motion to that effect second I'll second that any discussion or comments by the commission members all right we'll take a roll call for that Mr Andre Mr jaroso Mrs Griffith and it's Miss Griffith Miss Griffith I don't have a husband out there anyway um yeah some okay sorry about that so it's okay I know so Mr

pelli I Mr Conley i and m the chairman votes I so motion passes okay uh next item on the agenda is I believe a staff report uh The Ivy Place townhouse Lottery was conducted in the city council chamber right here uh the winning winning owners of 13 units were chosen and they're all in their way on their way of doing second at the design Review Committee of November 14th there was a medic comment the

project designed was unanimously recommended to the planning board third at the December 11th planning board meeting the metacomet project was unanimously recommended to the Waterfront commission there was a pre-application meeting December 12th regarding the Live Nation submission on the relocation of Cort drive five there was a site visit on December 12th with the mayor at East Point scheduled a ribbon

cutting model that's it uh thank you Ray um when is the holiday party it yeah I guess we missed it so right one thing when do you think Live Nation will be before the DRC yeah oh microphone sorry I would I would expect probably no earlier than three more months okay just want try to get an understanding one where they're in right now they're they're dealing with the relocation of seport Drive okay that's

what the meeting was the other day and they're in front of I think do is conferring with the state federal government too because F not sure about that but is amenable to what they want to do and Ai oood and de pre engineering in submitting that state once that's submitted and they developer knows that they've got that moved or it will be moved then they can design their parking lot in the

space that's being provided by moving of the road from East but then I think you'll see some action you will see submission after that are they going to do a workshop before that or or they be on that point they' they've already had two okay workshops here action three City staff right City staff yeah City staff yep right and they bring a team of about 20 people they do it it's impressed to a smaller group

or getting smaller because of all of the DS that said everything that they needed to now getting the work done great thank you yeah but they will have to come before us for a pre-application Workshop eventually but I understand that they're in serious negotiations with Billy Gilman to uh be uh be a primary sponsor speaker a performer so I know that's something that they're working on but I should have said that

publicly but that's something that the a local guy here so any for Ray okay I'll take a motion to adjourn I'll second it all right all those in favor I all right happy holidays everyone and thank you for your uh work at tonight and for the past year