The North Kingstown Planning Commission met on February 4, 2025, at 7:00 PM at Town Hall, 80 Boston Neck Rd. The meeting included a unified development review (UDR) for a property at 6500 Post Road, combining a zoning variance application and a preliminary/final development plan review, followed by a discussion on the Comprehensive Plan Five-Year Implementation Reporting. The commission also approved minutes from previous meetings.
Combine that with item 3B for the purpose of presentation and discussion, but they will be decided individually. Item 3A is a public hearing unified development review of the zoning variance application of North K properties LLC David Calwell for the construction of an addition, the installation of rooftop solar and associated approvements to be located at 6500 post-road assessors plat 157 lot 024, zone post-road and then the groundwater recharge overlay. Item 3B is a public hearing unified development review for the combined preliminary and final development plan review application of North K properties LLC, David Calwell for the construction of an addition, the installation of rooftop solar and the associated improvements to be located at 6500 post-road assessors plat 157 lot 24 zone post-road and then the groundwater recharge overlay. And I see a couple of people that aren't normally at our meetings. So if you haven't been to one before, um staff will walk us through after our questions, the applicant will present, then after questions, we will have public comment if you have anything you or anyone wants to say. And then after that, we usually develop a consensus. There isn't a decision tonight. The consensus is brought back usually within one or two meetings to be ratified, be it positive or negative. Okay. So uh Becky. So um just to provide a little bit of um context for why we're here tonight. You guys are getting quite familiar with these sorts of applications under the new law. Um, there's a couple of different reasons why they're here. First, um they're located in our groundwater recharge area. So, of course, as you know, when someone proposes some sort of out exterior alteration or change of use to a property and groundwater that requires approval by you for development plan review. Also, under the new state law, um post road is a growth corridor, so um being located in the growth corridor also necessitates the DPR review. Um when Jenna was first looking at this project, she realized that um not only did it need DPR, but it needed some relief from the setbacks in the post-road district. As you guys are all pretty familiar, um the post-road district has very unique standards, um design standards as well as setback requirements, um bedroom requirements and that sort of thing. So for an existing building such as the subject property, it is difficult for them to meet that 10 to 20 foot setback. The building predates the ordinance. Um so anything they do pretty much on this property, they would necessitate the need for a dimensional variance of some kind. In this instance, um it does have frontage on post-road and um Chadsee to the rear. However, the post-road district ha allows you to designate one front. So that's why the relief is coming from the post-road frontage and not um from the that's considered a rear line along Chadsey, not another front setback. So you can choose one front in the post-road district. So most of the relief is from the front, and then there is um some relief for one of the mechanicals on the southern side where it abuts a residential district because there's a greater requirement for setback on that side based on the height of the building. So that's kind of the context. They also are combining preliminary and final under the new state law. It is a staged process now for DPR, so they are requesting that it is a one one stage review. So they've requested that combination as well as a unified review for tonight. Um so again, um, they are proposing a two-story addition, and it's to accommodate um uh bathroom, mechanical room on the north end and a conference room on the south. And they're also, as I noted, they're going to be replacing um the HVA system, HVAC system with four units on the exterior. Again, they're there today, and out of an abundance of caution, they weren't sure if it was going to be an exact replacement. And we said you're going anyway, just seek the relief for those new units and bring it into conformance at least by getting that relief. They're also um proposing to put some rooftop solar as was demonstrated in the staff report. They're meeting the development standards for um solar. They're not exceeding any height limits. There's not going to be glare because they're relatively flat on the building. They're not going to be in an upright position where they could be causing glare off site. So they don't need any relief at all for the rooftop solar. It's just for the addition and the mechanicals. Um in the staff report it details the exact amount of relief that you need. Um I placed in front of you tonight just a little primer. So when you're going to grant the relief or not, you have the exact dimensions of what they're seeking as well as the standards for development plan review and the standards for the groundwater recharge area, as is very typical. Um as with the unified development, you have to make a decision on the zoning relief first with a condition that the development plan review be approved, and then you would take action on the development plan review second. Let's see. So they have like I said, they have access on post-road and Chadsey. They're actually reducing the amount of impervious surface to accommodate the new on-site wastewater treatment system. There was a system on the property, they had a redesign or an alteration. I'm not sure I didn't didn't look at the application.