Statehouse lot work riles board

PAVING AWAY: Construction crews work on the expanded parking lot at the Statehouse, a move which has drawn opposition from the Capital Center Commission. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE
PAVING AWAY: Construction crews work on the expanded parking lot at the Statehouse, a move which has drawn opposition from the Capital Center Commission. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE

(Updated, Oct. 30, 9 a.m.)

From above, the area around the Rhode Island capitol does not appear to lack parking.
In satellite images, parking lots snake around the Statehouse and state administrative buildings to the north. To the south, the Providence Place mall parking garage looms over Hayes Street and Interstate 95. But state leaders argue that the capitol suffers from a persistent parking scarcity and have made several recent investments to remedy it.
On the east side of the Statehouse, two terraced surface parking lots built into the lawn, after parking on the marble plaza in front of the building was banned, are being renovated and expanded.
To the west of the Statehouse on Francis Street, lawmakers approved the $3.1 million purchase this summer of about 1 acre between Rhode Island Credit Union and the Veterans Memorial Auditorium for use, at least in the immediate future, for another surface parking lot.
While turning one vacant lot into parking and expanding an existing lot seems a common practice in Providence, it flies in the face both of city zoning ordinance and the design regulations of the Capital Center Commission, the state-city board created to oversee development in the area around the capitol.
In his economic-development plan released this year, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, who has spoken several times about the need to reduce the number of surface lots in the city, listed redeveloping them fourth of his 20 action steps.
Capital Center Commission Chairman Deming Sherman, a partner at Edwards Wildman Palmer LLC in Providence, say the state overstepped its authority by moving ahead with the lot expansion over the objections of the commission.
He called the parking projects “bad policy” that could threaten a 1982 cooperative agreement with the city, federal government and land owner Capital Properties that helped create the Capital Center after the relocation of a river and railroad corridor. He suggested a parking garage be built on existing surface lots behind the Department of Administration building instead.
Saying the commission (with an annual budget of $17,000 according to the Office of the Secretary of State) cannot afford to sue the state, Sherman appealed for help to Taveras and House Speaker Gordon D. Fox, D-Providence, who grew up not far from the capitol. That help hasn’t been quick to arrive.
Despite his statements against the proliferation of surface parking lots, Taveras is keeping the city out of the issue.
“If the Capital Center Commission and state are not in agreement [in] regards to appropriate development, it is for the commission and state to resolve,” said Taveras spokesman David Ortiz.
Larry Berman, spokesman for House Speaker Gordon Fox said he would meet with Sherman if requested on the issue, but that the State House grounds are under the auspices of the Chafee Administration.
Calls to Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee’s office for comment were not immediately returned.
On the legality of the project, the state Department of Administration argues that its authority supersedes that of the Capital Center Commission, just as it does for local zoning rules.
The Capital Center Commission was formed to oversee redevelopment of 77 acres of land around the Statehouse transformed by the relocation of rail lines and the Providence River.
It began through state enabling legislation passed in 1981 and then a city ordinance a year later and has 15 members, including city and state appointees.
On the matter of the 1982 cooperative agreement, Fred Stolle, Department of Administration legal counsel, said the state was not in violation because it had cooperated with the commission when it brought the parking plans before it this past summer for a courtesy consultation. That consultation did result in some changes to the design, he said.
Aside from the legal and political issues is the question of whether the state actually should build more parking on the Statehouse lawn or nearby.
Opponents say surface parking lots turn vibrant urban areas into desolate fields of pavement that induce automobile congestion, discourage foot traffic and produce little or no tax or economic benefit. They also generate stormwater runoff that contributes to flooding and pollution.
The expansion of the Statehouse lot will add 29 new striped parking spaces, 14 fewer new spaces than plans presented to the Capital Center Commission, for a total of 216 spaces, said Ronald N. Renaud, executive director of operations and management for the Department of Administration. In fact, Renaud expects the effective capacity increase in the lot will only be six cars because 23 vehicles have been double parking and that practice will be stopped after the work is done.
The project is estimated to cost $713,000, Renaud said, and carve about 2,000 square feet of grass from the lawn while removing two trees. Only lawmakers and state employees working in the Statehouse are allowed to park in the lot.
The primary reason for the parking lot project was to repair the lots, not to increase parking on Capitol Hill, Renaud said, although he said overall parking when the General Assembly is in session is “scarce.”
“The existing parking lot failed. We couldn’t plow it,” Renaud said. “The expansion was a byproduct of the restoration. The drainage for the whole lot needed to be addressed and this will improve the environmental quality.”
At the Francis Street lot, Renaud said the state plans to grade it and put a crushed-stone base down that can be parked on for the upcoming winter. In the spring the state will look further into whether to pave the lot.
Renaud said he did not know how many spaces Francis Street would provide or how much paving it would cost.
Edward “Ted” Sanderson executive director of the R.I. Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, said last week that having a parking lot on the Statehouse lawn is “not ideal,” but the expansion is small enough to be outweighed by the drainage and design improvements of the project.
Lucie Searle, president of the board of directors of the Providence Preservation Society, told the Capital Center Commission that expanding parking on the lawn without regard for local concerns is a “travesty.”
While the Capital Center Commission, as of last week, hadn’t received any support from Rhode Island politicians, it was backed by Capital Properties, the public company that manages former land holdings of the Providence and Worcester Railroad.
Capital Properties Vice President Todd Turcotte told the commission that allowing the Chafee administration to disregard design regulations would be a “slippery slope” that could undermine the process that his company and others have followed for three decades. •

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