Charlestown Comp Plan process is flawed
By Frank Glista
On April 14, the
Charlestown Town Council and the Charlestown Planning Commission will have its
first joint public hearing regarding the rewrite of its Comprehensive Plan,
which is 367 pages in length.
For those of you who
may not know what a Comprehensive Plan is, here is a generic definition:
“Comprehensive planning is a process that determines community goals and
aspirations in terms of community development. The result is called a
comprehensive plan or general plan, and both expresses and regulates public
policies on transportation, utilities, land use, recreation, and housing.”
Now, the last
Comprehensive Plan was in 1991, which was started in 1990 and completed in
1992, taking about 15 months to complete. An update was done in 2006 and
approved by the Rhode Island Department of Administration in 2008. This
five-year update expired in 2013. So, from 2013 to 2021, the Charlestown
Planning Commission has been working on this new rewrite. Why has it taken so
long you ask? Good question.
Let’s do a little
exercise in comparison:
Issue #1: The 1991
plan allowed numerous groups of citizens to participate in the process. Each
element of the plan had it own Citizens Advisory Committee which held public
meetings. Seven committees were formed with 35 citizens participating in total.
There were also four
public workshops, two public hearings and 10 Citizens Advisory Committee
meetings for the public to provide input.
Along with meetings
with the Town Council, town administrator, town staff, board and commission
members and outside agencies, there was a total of 110 individuals who worked
on the 1991 plan.
In comparison, for
this rewrite, no public hearings have been scheduled until April 14 and no
Citizen Advisory Committee has ever been formed. The result? Citizens have had
difficulty participating in the process.
Issue #2: The
Pipeline, which contained a survey for this rewrite, was mailed out to the
entire list of Charlestown households and P.O. boxes in 2015, which consisted
of 5,177 recipients.
Copies were also left
in the library (50) and Town Hall (150).
As of July 13, 2015,
the Planning Department received 87 responses. 78 from residents, 7 from
seasonal residents and 2 from non-resident Charlestown land-owners.
Only four questions
were asked, with one having a rating chart.
In comparison, the
1991 questionnaire had 16 questions, with one being an essay-type question.
Another was a 15-question ranking system. In total, there were 31 questions.
Opinion: This process
has not been inclusive. 78 residents responding to the 2015 Comp Plan survey is
not representative of an open forum for discussion. Neither is it when the
Planning Commission, which is made up of one partisan group, places the Comp
Plan at the very end of their monthly meeting agenda where you would need to
sit for three or four hours before being heard.
When the public is
allowed to participate, the Comprehensive Plan gets completed in 15 months.
When the process is not inclusive, the process takes more than 7½ years.
We now have a perfect
opportunity to step back, complete the Townwide Surplus Survey, form Citizen
Advisory Committees, hold public hearings and most importantly, let the
residents fully participate in the process.