Narragansett resident Rupert Friday wants people to know he’s not a snob, and he’s not a one-percenter who wants to fight affordable housing development.
He’s retired from a career in land use planning and the nonprofit sector – a background he draws on as a member of the town planning board. His wife is a social worker, and Friday says he hears stories about people directly affected by Rhode Island’s housing crisis.
But he says a package of housing bills signed into law by Gov. Dan McKee earlier this year and promoted by lawmakers as a way to jumpstart affordable housing development is not the answer to the problem.
“I think the legislation was developed with an ear toward what the developers want – sort of build anything anywhere – and not an ear toward what works with communities,” Friday said.
The new laws address a wide range of development issues. Friday pointed to key changes he finds questionable.
One allows property owners to build bigger homes on lots that are smaller than the allowable lot size in a given zoning area. It’s something you see in communities that were largely developed before comprehensive zoning went into effect.
Another change minimizes building setbacks from property lines. Neither requires any commitment by the property owner to provide housing for people living on low or moderate incomes.
In Narragansett, people have already been buying small lots in neighborhoods built up decades ago, tearing down tiny cottages, and building large vacation homes or investment properties in their place. Friday predicts the town is going to see even bigger homes go up under the new state laws, which he said will undermine efforts Narragansett is making to address its affordable housing challenges.
“I would like to hear an explanation of how requiring larger houses does anything for affordable housing,” Friday said. “It does just the opposite. It makes housing more expensive.”
Instead, Friday said the state should allocate money to nonprofit developers to build affordable housing.
At its meeting on Monday night, the Narragansett Town Council could vote to approve changes that would effectively work around some updates in the state’s new housing laws.
One proposal would end inclusionary zoning in the town. Inclusionary zoning is an optional tool for municipalities that allows for more housing in subdivisions that have a certain amount of affordable housing units. Officials in Narragansett and some other municipalities think changes to the state law that enables local inclusionary zoning would allow developers to build subdivisions that are too dense.
The Narragansett Town Council is also poised to alter the town’s setback requirements to effectively neutralize the changes under the new legislation that could result in bigger building projects.
The town’s plans have drawn the ire of Speaker Shekarchi.
“They just don’t like any housing in Narragansett,” Shekarchi said. “I don’t believe what they’re saying is an honest justification.”
Right now, Narragansett ranks toward the bottom on the list of municipalities that have yet to reach Rhode Island’s mandates for affordable housing. Shekarchi called the town’s record on affordable housing “abysmal” and said Narragansett has “some of the most cumbersome zoning requirements in the state.”
“They’ve made it harder on everybody,” he said.
Shekarchi, a land use attorney, said the package of new housing laws isn’t intended to be all about affordable housing. Much of the changes are meant to provide private sector solutions that stimulate homebuilding broadly.
Shekarchi said elements of the housing package also undeniably incentivize private developers to build more affordable units.
“Nonprofit means, usually, state subsidized housing. The state cannot subsidize every single housing unit in the state,” Shekarchi said. “There has to be more private housing.”
Housing advocates generally support the new state housing laws. Brenda Clement, executive director of HousingWorks RI, said the new laws aren’t perfect, but the state was right to take action to stimulate housing development, because towns are not making adequate progress on their own.
Clement’s group recently released an online zoning atlas for Rhode Island that shows the state is largely zoned heavily in favor of single family houses to the detriment of the denser developments Clement says we need.
“We know that the local zoning and land use changes are long overdue,” she said. “And so these laws attempt to do that.”
Clement said she is also optimistic about efforts in the new legislation that could help leverage commercial properties and public transit hubs to expand housing.
But others say it’s not surprising that towns have concerns about the overall changes. Ashley Sweet, a consultant to municipalities and president of the Rhode Island Chapter of the American Planning Association, said the “timeframe in which all of this was drafted and implemented was just far too short.”
She added, “Many of these changes don’t take into consideration the unique characteristics that municipalities have.”
Sweet said there are inconsistencies and contradictory language in the legislation, and she expects issues related to the new laws to ultimately end up in court.
Alex Nunes can be reached at anunes@thepublicsradio.org
