In nearby Westerly, battle rages over country club vs. housing development
By Colleen Cronin / ecoRI News
staff
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| Photo: Winnapaug Country Club | Westerly, RI Golf Course |
Feet tapping, heads in hands, attendees of a Planning
Board meeting Tuesday night listened to town planner Nancy Letendre read from a
memo she had written to the board about why a proposed 2,300-unit development
on the Winnapaug Country Club didn’t fit into Westerly’s comprehensive plan.
Besides approving prior meeting minutes, nearly the
entirety of the 5-and-a-half-hour meeting was dedicated to discussion on the
potential redevelopment — the culmination of about six months of public debate
on the matter.
Developer Winn Properties and its expert witnesses argued that adding the housing units — they claimed 30% would be affordable — would accomplish many of Westerly’s housing goals and wouldn’t negatively impact the local environment.
But detractors, many of whom belong to the group Keep Westerly Green and wore that
color to show their opposition to the project, said the large number of units
would change the character and jeopardize the town’s environmental health.
By the end of the meeting, it was clear that most of the
Planning Board members sided with the latter group. As they spoke, one by one,
explaining their likely vote for denial, whispers among the green shirts grew
louder, with some throwing up fist pumps or thumbs up.
Ultimately, the board didn’t vote Tuesday to deny the
project — instead it voted to allow the town planner to draft a decision
denying the project, which the board is expected to vote on at its next
meeting.
Although it’s unlikely the project will move forward as
planned, the fight over its approval highlighted a debate in town over issues
like affordability and the environment that are unlikely to go away.
Affordability
In its proposal, Winn
Properties wants to transform the Shore Road country club from a golf course
into a 90-building, multifamily 2,300-unit housing development.
The developer initially submitted plans in December that
outlined how 30% (690 units) would be deed-restricted affordable housing for
people making 60% to 80% of the area median income.
It argued that the project would be “consistent with
local needs” because of how it could help boost the town’s affordable housing
stock, which currently sits at below 5%, according to HousingWorksRI. The
state requires a minimum of 10% long-term affordable housing in each
municipality, although few reach or exceed the
benchmark.
Doug McLean, a longtime planner and current director of
Coventry’s Planning Department, testified that the project would raise
Westerly’s affordable housing stock to 9%. In a letter to the board, McLean
noted the Winnapaug project would increase housing options and improve the
town’s long-term rental market.
To build the complex, the developer asked for waivers to
increase density, something that is permitted under
new affordable housing law. Although this is allowed, opponents argued the
steep increase in housing and density needed on about 120 acres of land was too
much to ask for and did not comply with the town’s comprehensive plan.
“It is the Administrative Officer’s opinion that the
proposed development of 2,300 apartments is a huge departure from the intent of
the Comprehensive Plan as it relates to the Future Land Use Plan for the
community, the goal of which is: ‘to strike the appropriate balance between
conservation and development and focus on resiliency,’” Letendre wrote in
a memo to the
Planning Board.
Letendre also noted that the comprehensive plan
specifically mentions Winnapaug Country Club “with the intent to preserve its
current recreational use and the addition of a hotel,” which the housing
development would not align with.
Environment
The high volume and density of the project also drew
concern about how the development would impact the local environment, including
the saltwater pond the country club is named after.
Winn Properties and its expert witnesses argued that it
could build treatment systems on the property that could safely handle
wastewater and configure the space to limit environmental impacts.
Most of the property lies outside the urban corridor of
the town and could not be hooked up to a sewer system, but an analysis from
DiPrete Engineering, hired by Winn, showed how the use of denitrification
systems, which are meant to reduce potential nitrogen release into groundwater,
and pumps to move wastewater away from Winnapaug Pond would be possible on the
property.
DiPrete’s Eric Previ acknowledged at Tuesday’s meeting
that Winn would need to undergo several review and permitting processes with
state agencies before finalizing a wastewater treatment setup.
McLean in his memo wrote that the analysis shows on-site
treatment is possible, although sewer expansion would be preferred.
The analysis and testimony did not assuage everyone.
Alicia Schaffner, executive director of the Salt
Ponds Coalition, an organization that tests, protects, and advocates
for the health of several salt ponds in Rhode Island, spoke at the meeting to
explain her concern about how the density of the project could impact Winnapaug
Pond.
Currently, conditions at the pond are neither exceptional
nor bad, she said.
“You’re teetering in that kind of ambiguous area right in
between, where if something goes wrong, you might end up in the bad zone,” said
Schaffner, explaining how increased nutrients, perhaps from a septic failure or
more untreated runoff, could lead to algal blooms or lower dissolved oxygen
levels.
These issues could hurt the organisms that live in and
around the pond, the people who use it for recreation and shellfishing.
Having worked with Charlestown on its own denitrification
systems, Schaffner said the town has been successful in reducing nutrient
releases into nearby ecosystems, but its not a foolproof system.
“Our worry is that when you have that error, that
ultimately it’s going to impact the ponds,” she said.
What happens next?
At the end of the meeting, several Planning Board members
listed their top concerns about the project.
“I have serious reservations that we are going to find
solutions that will have a development with 2,300 units at the end,” said
Matthew O’Neil, adding that he believed that there were parts of the project
that are inconsistent with the town’s comprehensive plan.
He noted that it was difficult to weigh two important
issues: affordable housing and the character of the town.
Fellow board member Christopher Lawlor said he was
hesitant to support something that could have a negative impact on Winnapaug
Pond or the rest of the community.
“I support affordable housing, but not by destroying a
neighborhood,” he said. “Bottom line, this is just too big a project for this
part of town.”
Board chair Justin Hopkins took more of a middle ground,
saying there is an “in-between application” that hasn’t been proposed.
He said denying the application could take away some of
the Planning Board’s control over the project if the developer wins an appeal.
“We’ll lose control of the process,” he said. “We’ve
always kept it in-house.”
Keep Westerly Green is “very pleased” that most of the
Planning Board members said they are against approving a comprehensive permit
for the project, organization representative Susan Strouse wrote in a statement
to ecoRI News.
“But it isn’t over until a formal vote,” she wrote. “If
Winn Properties decides to appeal to Superior Court, there will be another
hurdle to overcome.”
Strouse wrote that the organization is also glad the
board recognized some of the environmental concerns it brought up.
Keep Westerly Green “fully recognizes and supports the
need for affordable housing in Westerly,” she added. “The Winnapaug Golf Course
is just not the appropriate location for a development of this magnitude with
the risk of so many of Westerly’s natural resources.”
Winn Properties Jill Scola declined to comment at the end
of the meeting Tuesday night.
The next Planning Board meeting is scheduled for July 16.