Frank Carini |
By
Editor's Note: the General Assembly intends to adjourn on Friday. The Builders' Bill is still stuck in the House committee where there apparently is some difficulty scheduling a vote. If the committee votes it out, it must pass on the House floor and then go through the same process in the Senate, all before next Friday.
There’s
no shortage of vacant buildings and mills in Rhode Island, especially in
Greater Providence, but the Rhode Island Builders Association wants permission
to pour foundations on hills and in wetlands, and on Matunuck Beach if it could
— all in the name of putting people back to work.
But we
can’t simply build our way out of a bad economy. This promise-of-employment
idea makes about as much sense as giving a multimillion-dollar pitcher who
wants to make video games a $75 million state-guaranteed loan.
Not
surprisingly, that ill-advised gamble blew up in the face of Rhode Island taxpayers, including those
still looking for work. Now the Rhode Island
Builders Association wants
to make false promises it hopes will convince shortsighted lawmakers to shrink
the state’s buildable lot size and eliminate the assessment of slope when
calculating buildable area.
Such a change would effectively force
municipalities to allow more residential development in rural areas with
environmental restrictions — areas that are zoned for large lots and
low-density development to better protect water quality and wetlands.
Basically,
developers want to introduce McMansions to countryside escapes with a view, and
they would love the chance to turn rural Rhode Island
into something akin to West Main
Road in Middletown .
They want to restrict municipal authority to protect wetlands and steep land
from development, because a Texas
State University
study ranked Rhode Island No. 1 in land-use regulation.
John
Marcantonio, president of the Rhode Island Builders Association, which crafted
the pending legislation, recently told the House Municipal Government Committee
that, “Local legislation has grown exponentially, while the market for new
homes has steadily declined.
We’ve seen a 7 percent reduction in the
(homebuilding) sector. The industry is underwater. This bill will slightly
reduce that level of regulation, and allow us to put people back to work.”
Rubbish.
Building new homes in areas currently deemed off-limits — and for good reason —
is, at best, a short-term solution to our high unemployment rate. The state
should be helping put local builders, contractors, plumbers, masons and
electricians back to work, but not by rewriting codes so more homes can be
built as close as possible to state parks and protected wetlands.
Proponents
of loosening regulations also want to add a definition of “conservation
development” to the state building code. Fine. It should read something like
this:
1. The act of turning vacant mills,
derelict properties and downtrodden buildings in the state’s urban core into
functional, mixed-use developments that invigorate the tax base, provide
affordable homes, create office space for start-up businesses and nonprofits,
incorporate renewable energy systems, creates jobs and energizes the community.
2. Building should be done in
areas that have the infrastructure in place to handle proper growth.
The
state could have used some of that $75 million the Economic Development
Commission wasted on Curt Schilling to put “conservation development” to work.
Building
homes on slopes and in wetlands in Burrillville, Millville and North Foster would, among other
not-so-good things, add to the state’s acreage of impervious surface, which
damages water quality by increasing the amount of pollution that ends up in our
groundwater and drinking water supplies.
The lead
sponsor of the bill (pdf)
in the House, Rep. Raymond Gallison Jr., D-Bristol/Portsmouth, offered no
testimony on the bill at the recent House Municipal Government Committee
hearing, except to say, “There is a lot of confusion surrounding this bill. It
simply clarifies the building code for building officials."
More
rubbish.
He then
added, “I don’t know much about the intricacies of the bill (even though he
sponsored it). I’d rather let the experts testify on them.”
Well,
let's hear from a few. The Rhode Island chapter of the American Planning
Association, the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, the Environmental
Council of Rhode Island; the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island
Association of Conservation Commissions, Save The Bay, Clean Water Action, the
Sierra Club of Rhode Island, the Burrillville Land Trust and the Cumberland
Land Trust are all against the so-called “Dry Lands Act.”
Eight
municipal councils — Charlestown, Exeter, Little Compton, Hopkinton, New
Shoreham, North Kingstown, Richmond, South Kingstown and Tiverton — have
adopted formal resolutions opposing this legislation.
I hope
their expertise helped clear up the confusion.
Frank
Carini is the executive director of ecoRI News.