North Kingstown Planning Commission Meeting - August 1, 2023
North Kingstown Planning Commission Meeting - August 1, 2023
The North Kingstown Planning Commission met on August 1, 2023, at 7:00 PM at Town Hall to consider several items including a surety reduction, a minor modification request to eliminate street lights, and two comprehensive plan and zoning amendment requests. The meeting concluded with a public comment on agenda transparency.
Consent Calendar
- Surety Reduction (90%) for Tide Mill South: Approved unanimously (6-0) to reduce the surety bond by $29,774.38 to a total hold of $60,402.41, representing the final 10% retention. The reduction received a positive recommendation from the Deputy Director of Public Works.
Discussion Items
- Minor Modification: Reynolds Farm LLC – Elimination of Street Lights in Phase 1: The applicant, represented by attorney Sanford Resnick, requested elimination of six of 14 required street lights that were not yet installed (bases were in place but no wiring). Discussion centered on the history: originally, street lights were to be installed by National Grid (then Rhode Island Energy) and were not bonded because they were not considered town infrastructure. However, National Grid stopped providing lights mid-project. The town now owns lights and they have become required infrastructure. The police department (Captain McCoy) provided a letter stating lighting is a must for safety given the sidewalks and infrastructure. The Commission expressed strong concerns about safety and liability of eliminating required lights, noting they are on the approved plan. The applicant argued it was never their responsibility and they are being unfairly burdened by National Grid's change. The Commission ultimately voted to deny the request for relief (6-0), requiring the developer to install the remaining lights.
- Public Hearing: 3760 Quaker Lane LLC – Comprehensive Plan Amendment and Zoning Change for Assessor's Plat 130 Lot 65: Continued from May 16 and July 18. The applicant seeks to change the Future Land Use Map from Commercial/Low Density Residential to Commercial, and zoning from General Business/Rural Residential to General Business. Staff noted minor edits to the decision memo, including adding language about a conservation easement along the wetland buffer line. The Commission discussed adding reference to the cleanup of the parcel but decided against it. Motion to send a positive recommendation to the Town Council passed 5-0-1 (with one abstention).
- Public Hearing: Frenchtown Investors LLC – Comprehensive Plan Amendment and Zoning Change for Assessor's Plat 177 Lots 29 and 30: Continued from July 18. Seeks to change Future Land Use Map from Commercial to Light Industrial, and zoning from General Business to Light Industrial. Staff noted minor grammatical edits. Motion to send a positive recommendation to the Town Council passed 6-0. The Chair clarified that the votes covered both the comp plan and zoning amendments.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Resident Comment: Dick James, a former town council member, addressed the Commission requesting that future agendas include more specific location information (road address, telephone pole references) for properties under review, to improve transparency and accessibility for residents. He noted difficulty in identifying parcel locations from plat and lot numbers alone, particularly for older residents. The Commission discussed the feasibility, noting that full packages with locus maps are available online via hyperlinks from previous meetings. Chair James Grundy acknowledged the request and suggested adding a reference to the town's GIS mapping page on the agenda.
Key Outcomes
- Surety Reduction for Tide Mill South: Approved (6-0).
- Reynolds Farm Street Light Modification: Denied (6-0); the developer must install the remaining six street lights as per the approved plan.
- 3760 Quaker Lane LLC – Comp Plan and Zoning: Positive recommendation to Town Council (5-0-1).
- Frenchtown Investors LLC – Comp Plan and Zoning: Positive recommendation to Town Council (6-0).
- Public Comment: The Commission took under advisement the request to add more location information to agendas.
Meeting Transcript
The first item we have on the agenda is a surety reduction for Tide Mill South. I don't see anyone here for Tide Mill South, but we do have communication data July 26. This was sent from Ali Spox, the Deputy Director of Public Works slash town engineer to Nicole. And this is a reduction to hold a total of $60,402 and 41 cents. This is a reduction of $29,774 and 38 cents. This brings us down to the final 10%. And this has received a positive recommendation to us from the deputy director. And if no one has any questions or comments on this, I would ask for a motion to accept this recommendation and send it forward. I'll make that motion. Second. Motion and a second. Is there any discussion on this? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed. That is 6-0. Next item on the agenda. Minor modification request of Reynolds Farm LLC to eliminate not yet installed street lights, phase one of Runnels Farm. Sandy, you're in here for the applicant. Okay. I think you know the process. Nicole walk us through and then after questions, we'll give you whatever time you need. So this is not the easiest to explain, so I apologize if I confuse you before I help you. This is for the first phase of Reynolds Farm. And for some reason, they out of the 14 required lights, eight were installed and six are not installed. Of the eight that were installed, a number of them were the approved type of lights, and a number of them are not. So the basis for all of the lights were installed, but the lights were not. Sandy, identify yourself for the record, please. My name is Sanford Resnick. I'm the attorney for the applicant. So we've had meetings over, I'd say it's been a couple years with representatives of the H.A. Fisher Homes Company. We've been in touch with National Grid, and there does not seem to be a one answer as to why eight were installed and the other six pieces were installed, but not the lights. So you could not just go in and repeat the action, whatever it was that was taken to install or put in those first eight lights now. It's a different process for them. So that being said, we did hold uh $50,000 in your last bond for the streetlight issue because it was not solved. As you know, streetlights are not or have not been part of our bonding process because they were never town infrastructure or going to be owned by us. They were always a utility. So we it was not something we thought of. Now that we we are in the light business and we own lights, we will now be including the lights within any bond where they are required. As you also know, they are not required in many places. The specific locations where it's required. Um these are on the final plans, the final approved plan. So at this point for us as a town, they are required infrastructure. Um that's why the applicant is here today, because the first step in figuring out how we're going to move forward after having these couple of years of trying to figure out what the heck happened is there they're requesting that they don't have to figure out the rest and put in the rest of the lights. Um that's sort of a very basic version of the history. So uh my my basics is that I cannot give you a reason why the lights are not installed, but they're not. The bases are in, they're on the plans, and we have to figure out a way to move forward either with installing the lights or not installing the lights. Our um, I did reach out to our public safety departments on the issue because I felt that that was obviously an important piece of it.
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