From the urban core to the beachfront, Rhode Island is looking for solutions to its housing crisis.
At the statehouse, there’s been some pressure on cities and towns to change their zoning laws to allow more housing. But there has also been pushback.
For our series Zoned Out: How local zoning hurts efforts to solve Rhode Island’s decades-long housing shortage, The Public’s Radio’s Dave Fallon interviewed Andy Nota, the town manager of East Greenwich and a vice president of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns.
Interview Highlights
On differing views on the housing crisis at the state and local levels
Andy Nota: As a Rhode Islander and having worked in municipal government for about 33 years now, I can say in my experience: the strength of Rhode Island is we have 39 cities and towns and we’re all very unique. So our towns have all evolved in terms of their zoning and their makeup in a very unique way.
There are times when people may say local zoning is an impediment to expanded or more diversified housing. You know, I would argue that point.
The same people that our state officials are trying to mandate housing initiatives for — to be able to support and expand housing stock and diversity — our local officials like myself, our boots on the ground, we’re interacting with our residents every single day. In my experience, we’re finding that many of those same residents are also finding ways to articulate why some of those projects maybe should not go forward. In their given town, maybe in a particular location, and then many times based on the ramifications that come with significant growth in housing and population, because the zoning that we have today has evolved over decades.
So just because legislation was just recently approved and mandated — we’re going to react as quickly as we can, but it is going to take us years to be able to get aligned with that new strategy to be able to effectuate that level of change.
On whether the state can ease housing affordability without mandating changes to local zoning laws
Nota: I think the challenge that we have with any mandates — and I think you’ve heard this message from the League of Cities and Towns on virtually every issue — is that mandates are incredibly challenging for us. The challenge that we have is when you cast a net over 39 cities and towns with the same rules, it is virtually impossible for us to align our interests in the same exact way, because each of our towns is so different — some of them are similar, but they’re all very, very different in a lot of respects. And [the towns] have different systems in place to address some of the priorities as outlined in the legislation.
It could be some of the density, right? It’s very simple for people to say ‘Well just lower your density. A very simple thing. Have overlay districts, include various priorities within those districts.’ But many cities and towns don’t have the utilities and the infrastructure — all the programmatic services, municipal services — to back up a dramatic increase in population.
While we may get some support, maybe technical and maybe in some other funding to help subsidize a project, we’re not getting support for all of the other services that are going to be required. And that would be, I think, a common theme amongst most municipalities as to why we would have difficulty in broadly accepting the legislation that has already been passed.
But I think we also know that this first bite at the apple is not going to be perfect.
On how communities can work together to increase the housing stock and the role of the federal and state governments
Nota: It’s a hard thing in Rhode Island again. We’re all so independent. We don’t want anybody in our town to tell us what to do from outside of our town. But I think that there is great value in terms of looking more so to the county form of government or some form of regionalization that would allow us to gain improved access to some of these other funds that we’re absolutely going to need to be able to be successful.
Because as I noted earlier, look at East Greenwich in terms of our median income: we’re a very small town. We’re 14,300 people, so even by Rhode Island standards we’re a small town. Those that live here may earn more than the average other Rhode Islander, but in terms of galvanizing the tens of millions of dollars that are needed to effectuate significant growth and significant housing initiatives, it’s not going to be able to come from our residents or the residents of any other town in this state.
We’re going to participate, we’re going to be at the table and we’re going to help in terms of the service support and infrastructure and other things that are in our business, but we’re going to need the state and the federal government to be able to help us really to be able to achieve some of the lofty goals that have been set in the legislation as is.
