Blackstone zoning plan seeks to limit development

In most neighborhoods, the pair of two-story colonials that began rising on a Providence street corner four years ago – one cream-colored, the other gray with a big garage door facing the sidewalk – wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.
But this wasn’t most neighborhoods. It was Blackstone Boulevard, the most exclusive section of Providence’s desirable East Side, and neighbors noted the new houses didn’t quite match the shape and style of the estates around them.
They were being built on what was previously a single lot and, as a result, were closer together and narrower than others on the block.
What’s more, the owner of the properties, Providence attorney Thomas H. Diprete, had torn down a faux-Italian villa and was planning to build two more houses on a similar Blackstone Boulevard lot to the north.
While there was nothing they could do at the time to stop Diprete from building the houses, which conformed to city zoning, Blackstone neighbors didn’t forget and have now taken steps to make sure nothing similar is built in the neighborhood again.
In community forums on rewriting Providence’s zoning code, they encouraged city planners to protect the area from future development, which in turn led to a proposed down-zoning of 107 acres along Blackstone Boulevard.
The change, part of the proposed zoning ordinance rewrite expected to go before city councilors for approval later this year, would create a new district for the Blackstone area allowing new construction only on lots of at least 7,500 square feet, up from the current 5,000 square feet. (The current R-1 district calls for 6,000-square-foot lots, but contains a loophole to get down to 5,000 square feet.)
If approved, the change would make houses like the ones built by Diprete on newly created 6,500- and 5,500-square-foot lots illegal.
“It is something we heard complaints about, analyzed, and agreed there is a character there that could be jeopardized if that zoning was to remain in place,” said Robert Azar, Providence director of current planning, about development in Blackstone. “We wanted to preserve that character and prevent where developers buy a large lot with a house on it, demolish it, and subdivide it into two 6,000-square-foot lots.” But while the Blackstone zoning change would affect a modest 487 properties in the city, it has sparked pointed questions about whether down-zoning is consistent with the city’s broader push to promote denser, more diverse, walkable neighborhoods freed from suburban land-use rules.
By increasing the legal lot size, the change will reduce the number of people who can live in Blackstone, making it even more exclusive and suburban.
“The tightening of the East Side zoning map surprised me because the general thrust of the rezoning is to mildly loosen regulations to allow development to continue,” said Samuel Bell, Rhode Island coordinator of the Progressive Democrats of America, one of the first to object to the proposal. “Overly aggressive zoning can be problematic for several reasons, but a big one is it is important to have integrated communities with people of different means and backgrounds living near one another. And here we are talking about upper-middle-class housing becoming somewhat more so.”
Other problems with limiting development, Bell said, include reducing the city’s ability to grow its property-tax base in a high-demand area largely free of gentrification concerns.
And by limiting housing options in the city, more Rhode Islanders would be forced to live further out in the suburbs, straining infrastructure while increasing car traffic and carbon emissions.
The Blackstone change is one of two notable residential down-zonings in the proposed rewrite, the other coming across town in the very different Olneyville neighborhood.
In Olneyville, zoning is being changed from the “R-M” district, which permits six-story buildings, to the more restrictive “R-3” district, meant to accommodate triple deckers with a maximum height of 45 feet.
Both changes reflect one of the driving objectives of the rezoning, to enshrine the development patterns that exist in a particular neighborhood in the rules governing its future. In some cases, this means up-zoning to accommodate denser, prewar construction, while in others going in the opposite direction.
The Blackstone changes have drawn scrutiny at least partially because of the area’s affluence and fact that the perceived benefits would mostly fall to the city’s wealthiest residents.
Asked if he was sensitive to inequality concerns about the Blackstone change, Azar said he was, but that zoning is typically used to protect local interests, rather than promote broader civic goals. And perhaps more significantly, that keeping the existing rules would only benefit developers.
“We have very dense, downtown urban living and we have opportunities to live in mixed-use districts and we also have opportunities for larger-lot, single-family living,” Azar said.
City Councilor Sam Zurier, who represents Blackstone and supports the zoning change, said keeping the genteel nature of the neighborhood would benefit those who don’t live there, if only in a more fleeting way.
“If you look at the way the neighborhood is built out, it has a certain look and feel to it that is valuable to the people there and very pleasant to travel through,” Zurier said.
Limiting development should increase aggregate property values for the East Side in general by reducing supply and maintaining the area’s exclusivity.
However, owners with less-attractive houses, but lots with the potential to tear down and subdivide under current rules, would see property values fall with the change.
Diprete said he never heard any complaints from neighbors about the two houses he knocked down, especially the one at the corner of Laurel Avenue and Blackstone, which included numerous code violations.
Without the potential to subdivide them, Diprete said many properties in the neighborhood will instantly lose value.
“Some people prefer new houses and there are only so many who want a really big, old place,” he said. •

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