North Kingstown Planning Commission Meeting Summary – September 20, 2022
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North Kingstown Planning Commission Meeting – September 20, 2022
The North Kingstown Planning Commission met Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at 7:00 p.m. in the Municipal Offices Court Room, 100 Fairway Drive, North Kingstown, RI. The commission approved a construction cost estimate for Carriage Hill Farm, approved a request to combine master and preliminary review for West Shannock Associates, discussed potential updates to the Zoning Ordinance and Subdivision and Land Development Regulations, and acted on the September 6, 2022 minutes.
Construction Cost Estimate
- The commission reviewed a revised construction cost estimate for Carriage Hill Farm, a 3-lot minor subdivision at Assessor's Plat 4, Lot 2, 2860 Tower Hill Road.
- Allie, the town's pending deputy director, outlined revisions: adding 40 linear feet of 12-inch pipe and two 12-inch pipe end sections, and raising the hot mix asphalt unit price from about $100 per ton to $300 per ton because only a small quantity of asphalt is involved.
- The commission approved the estimate in the amount of $148,353.74, including contingency, with no opposition.
Master/Preliminary Review Combination
- Chairman James Grundy recused himself because he owns property adjacent to the West Shannock Associates site, and Vice Chairman Patrick Roach presided.
- West Shannock Associates requested combining the master and preliminary stages for a major land development project at Assessor's Plat 79, Lot 50, 280 Dry Bridge Road, zoned Light Industrial and located in the Groundwater Wellhead Protection Area.
- Discussion noted that an earlier application existed approximately a decade earlier, but the new request would be reviewed as a new master/preliminary submission, not as approval of the old application. Several commissioners expressed concern about setting a precedent for large or old projects.
- The commission approved the combination by voice vote. The approved motion recognized that no element of the prior application carries forward, no grandfather rights attach, and current state regulatory changes and preliminary completeness requirements must still be met.
Public Comments & Testimony
- A public commenter who said he formerly served on the Town Council said special use permits should receive a final vote by the Town Council rather than appointed boards, criticized the Zoning Board's recent decision on the Easy Stay Motel, and argued the Post Road Corridor zoning should be reverted to older zoning. He also urged the commission to make property addresses more prominent in public notices and cautioned about groundwater/wellhead protection concerns in the Dry Bridge Road area.
- A member of the public named Kathy asked that commission handouts, such as the staff's regulation-update list, be made available to observers at meetings or attached to the agenda. She also noted difficulty hearing and hoped the future town hall would have better audio.
Discussion: Zoning and Subdivision Regulation Updates
- Planning staff distributed a working list of potential ordinance and regulation amendments, including a summary of 2022 state legislative changes. The list was not attached to the agenda because it was completed at the last minute.
- Commissioners agreed to work through the list incrementally. Members will email staff with topics they want to research, small groups will work to avoid quorum issues, and proposals will come back for later advertised discussion and public hearing.
- Topics raised during discussion included construction bond adequacy for long projects and inflation, comparing estimates to final designs, making findings and documenting consideration of criteria, inconsistencies between ordinance sections, lighting standards versus OSHA requirements, and Post Road corridor issues such as "hockey stick" lots and access.
Key Outcomes
- Approved the Carriage Hill Farm construction cost estimate of $148,353.74.
- Approved the combined master/preliminary review for the West Shannock Associates application at 280 Dry Bridge Road, with Chairman Grundy recused.
- Launched a working process for ordinance and regulation review; commissioners are to send topic preferences to staff.
- Approved the September 6, 2022 meeting minutes as amended. One commissioner said they would abstain because they were not present at that meeting.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening. I'd like to call the Tuesday, September 20th, 2022 planning commission meeting to order. First item on the agenda is a construction cost estimate, Carriage Hill Farms, three lot minor subdivision at assessors plat four lot two located at 2860 Telwahill Road. Jim, will I want to introduce it for please? Okay. I'd like to introduce uh Allie is our are you the official town engineer yet? Still acting. Still pending? Okay. So she's our pending deputy director. And I had the uh pleasure of talking to her about some of the things on the cost estimate today that we'll probably deal with more going forward than right now. Um because I don't know that it's really fair to make a policy change on an applicant at this point. Um it's no fault of staff and no fault of the applicant. It's just the way numbers seem to fall with the system that we use, so but we're gonna work through that. So um Ally, do you want to walk us through what we have? And do you want me to walk you through? So I have a couple revisions based on quantities, and then I have the one revision on the asphalt price. Can we just start with that whatever you overview of it? I don't know. Which I'll start with so just a couple minor edits that I think amounted to about $1,500 increase in the overall bond. I just missed a couple, like 40 feet of it was on page three item 10 and item 16. I added 40 linear feet of 12 inch diameter HP height and two twelve inch pipe end sections that I just have missed in the first row round. Um and then uh if you go back to page two for item twelve and sixteen, the um we have a unit price of approximately a hundred dollars per ton of this is for the um hot mix asphalt, and we're looking at increasing that unit price to three hundred dollars per ton based on it's a very small quantity. The the hundred dollars per ton is for larger road product uh projects, and I think it was the estimated quantities or the the average quantities were like in the thousands of tons, so it's appropriate to bump up the price a little bit since it's such a small quantity as asphalt. If the town did have to provide this portion of the road, it would cost more than a hundred dollars per ton. So Allie, what was the the total increase in the bond value? Um I didn't calculate it out with the three hundred yet. I haven't been at my office all day today. That's okay with that. Um but the increase without the asphalt, but brought it up to one forty-two one seventeen point eighty-one. Six thousand. Do you want exact numbers? Uh please. Yeah. So 200 times 30 is 6,000. So that'll bring that front up to 41, 3673. And the other one we'd be adding 404 for page three. What was that, Jim? 78. 78, 365 and 93 cents. Uh 41367.73. All right, we'll see if our numbers match. Well, I want to make sure it's I'd rather just input it into my Excel spreadsheet and make it do it itself. I got 148056. So it's sorry about that. I got 14014589 again. That's less than what's here now. Uh no, no, because we haven't done the contingency yet. Oh okay. I just wanted to make sure we agree on the total first.
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