Board Approves Master Plan for Route 138 Development

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA
July 24th 2024

RICHMOND – The Planning Board has approved the master planfor the Gardiner Apartments mixed-use development at 102 Kingstown Road (Route 138).

The application, submitted by Joseph Catelli, will involve renovating an existing commercial building on the .95-acre parcel and the construction of an apartment building which will comprise four, 2-bedroom units.

The application has already been presented to the Planning Board. At Tuesday’s public hearing, which was a continuation of a hearing that began on July 9, project engineer Patrick Freeman was present to answer questions from the board and the public, however there were no questions from residents and only a handful from board members.

The developer has already requested and received several waivers, including the waiving of the requirement to install utilities underground.

Board Chair Philip Damicis said the decision to grant a waiver for the utilities was an easy one.

“Because it’s such a short distance, basically, the overhead is at the street, and the building is not even a hundred feet from the overhead lines, so it wouldn’t be good planning practice to require whole underground duct thing,” he said. “It would be good planning practice, I believe, just to run the overhead line directly to the building.”

The board, with new member Carl Coutu recusing himself because he was not yet familiar with the application, voted to approve the master plan with two conditions, which were summarized by Damicis.

“One is, we requested additional detail on the site lighting to ensure that it is dark sky compliant, and the other thing was a traffic study that addressed the concerns over the line - of - sight distance,” he said.

The line - of - sight condition addresses board Vice Chair Dan Madnicks’ concern that people pulling out onto Route 138 might not have sufficient time or space to make a left turn onto the busy road.

The Technical Review Committee

Town Planner Talia Jalette presented a flow chart showing how  the planning process would function with the addition of the new Technical Review Committee, or TRC.

Mandated by legislation passed in 2023 by the Rhode Island General Assembly, the TRC will provide technical assistance and reviews of major land development applications to the Planning Board.

The committee has been described by some as redundant, because the board already solicits the expertise of department heads and outside experts.

The Richmond committee will include:

*The administrative officer, which in this case, is Jalette,

*Public Works Director, Gary Robar

*Zoning Enforcement Officer, Josh Jordan

*a Planning Board member

* the town engineer. Richmond does not have a town engineer, so this role would be filled by an engineer retained by the town

*The manager of the water department

* a representative from the Richmond Conservation Commission

*The Chief of either the Richmond-Carolina of the Hope Valley-Wyoming Fire Department, depending on where the project is located

The reviews will take place during master plan review. The committee will serve in an advisory capacity, but its final report will be included in the project review.

Working with the administrative officer, the TRC will also be called upon to review final plans for minor land developments.

Jalette’s July 19th memo to the Planning Board states,

“Henceforth, every Preliminary Plan approval for a minor land development or minor subdivision should delegate Final Plan review and approval to the Administrative Officer or the Technical Review Committee.”

New Board member Carl Coutu, who has a background in real estate development, said he was concerned that the committee might be too big.

“This is a big group,” he said. “Every one I’ve ever been involved in is made up of four people. It’s usually the planner, it’s the town engineer, it is the zoning official, and really, that’s it, unless there’s something major. Everything else is done with comments. It’s floated around the various departments and done with comments.”

Damicis replied that Richmond does not have a town engineer.

“We have private consultants,” he said. “So, if it’s environmental, conservation, we rely on our volunteer committees for a lot of this stuff.”