"Councilman Wants Zoning Changed in Area around Warwick, R.I., Airport"

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Councilman Wants Zoning Changed in Area around Warwick, R.I., Airport
The Providence Journal, R.I.


WARWICK, R.I. -- Councilman Steve Merolla is pushing the city to write a
plan to rezone neighborhoods around T.F. Green Airport for commercial
development, so that instead of waiting decades for buyouts, residents can
band together and sell for nonresidential development that's compatible with
airport noise.

About two dozen homeowners in Hillsgrove South did just that, in 1999, with
special approval from the City Council. They combined their house lots into
a 6-acre parcel and sold to a developer of private airport parking -- and
for much more than their properties were worth as housing.

Merolla, a Democrat, said yesterday that the way to meet airport expansion
head-on and give residents a timely and potentially profitable way out would
be to update the city's Comprehensive Plan to include an "airport overlay
zone."

The zone would essentially form a ring of nonresidential land uses around
the airport, creating a buffer between the airport and neighborhoods farther
out.

The Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 1991, did not include such a zone, but
many officials have called for its creation since then. Indeed, the most
recent noise-control study sponsored by the Airport Corporation recommended
"compatible" zoning around Green.

When Republican Mayor Scott Avedisian's budget proposal for the Planning
Department comes up for City Council review on June 3, Merolla said he will
try to amend it to provide money for an immediate Comprehensive Plan update.

(The plan, only recently approved by the state in May 2003, is essentially
the same one that the City Council adopted 12 years earlier, in 1991.)
Without a plan updated specifically to deal with the airport traffic boom of
the late 1990s, Merolla said, residents who find themselves in the
high-noise zone after the next round of expansion will have to live with the
noise and pollution for years before the Airport Corporation condemns their
properties.

He estimated it will take another seven years for the corporation to buy
houses that took the brunt of the 1996 expansion.

"It doesn't look like the city is going to be able to prevent [additional
expansion at Green]," Merolla said. "Obviously, it's going to create more
flights, and that will create higher noise levels, and that [high noise]
zone will expand, causing more soundproofing and more purchasing of homes."

State and federal officials who are pushing for expansion "are telling us
it's OK for people to wait 15 years to have their homes purchased," Merolla
said. "[But] if we create an airport overlay zone, it would give people an
opportunity to get out of harm's way, if they so chose, and not wait 15
years for their houses to be designated, classified and purchased."

Mark Carruolo, director of the Warwick Planning Department, said yesterday
it may not be possible to create an airport overlay zone until the FAA
approves a definite expansion plan for Green.

Until then, he said, it's not even clear where the boundaries of the airport
will be.

"We tried to proactively look at what RIAC was planning to do and it's a
moving target. It has been for some time," Carruolo said. "We thought we had
them locked into not moving the fence line. Now all of a sudden we're
looking at 9,500-foot runways.

"Until it's determined what RIAC's going to do, it's going to be very
difficult to create a land-use plan for around the airport," Carruolo said.
"It's a great concept, but to turn that into reality is not that simple."

In a memo to Merolla on Monday, Carruolo estimated it would cost up to
$19,000 this year to update the Comprehensive Plan. Avedisian did not
propose to fund the effort when he sent his new budget to the City Council
on Monday.

Merolla said the update must be done now, given that the Airport Corporation
wants to extend the main runway and double the number of gates in the Bruce
Sundlun Terminal.

"We need to look at this as soon as possible and not after the expansion,"
Merolla said.

The council will review the Planning Department budget in a hearing set to
start 7 p.m. on June 3, at City Hall, 3275 Post Rd.


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