WARWICK -- Over the summer, when scores of developers were proposing to build as many as 1,200 condominiums in Warwick, the city Planning Department made a policy shift: it would strongly urge the City Council and Planning Board to shoot down projects that needed even minimal relief from the zoning law.
The department was concerned not only about the sheer volume of condominiums proposed, but the number of developers seeking to build the residential units on land zoned commercial or industrial, director Mark Carruolo said yesterday.
"I think it's started to cool off a little now, but over the summer, every project I had in here, every discussion I had with a developer, every meeting, it was condo, condo, condo," he said.
"I was concerned about that," he said, so he let developers know that any project that "failed to meet the letter of the zoning code" would get a negative recommendation from the Planning Department staff.
Despite those efforts to discourage such applications, Mayor Scott Avedisian said yesterday that developers are bound to remain interested in building condos on land zoned for other uses.
"I think the pressure will be there because there is very little residential land left," Avedisian said. "The big-money development has already been done," he said, but developers who want to stay in the business have simply shifted gears to smaller projects.
"They'll take virtually anything that comes along," he said.
Years ago, they would have proposed 300 condos on land already zoned residential. Now the typical proposal calls for 30 units on commercial or industrial land.
In the long run, Avedisian said, such zone changes would work to the disadvantage of all classes of taxpayers.
"Right now we have a good mix of commercial, industrial and residential," he said. "It's one of the reasons why we've had such a healthy city, because we don't have to solely rely on one portion of the tax base to bring us along."
"We want to make sure we're not undoing what has traditionally been very positive for us," Avedisian said.
A developer who proposed 30 condominiums on Toll Gate Road recently withdrew the project after the Planning Department urged the Planning Board to reject it. Carruolo said yesterday the project "needed substantial relief" from the zoning code, "and I said we're just not going to do it."
This month, the City Council killed the 85-unit Woodfield Farms condominium project on Toll Gate Road. The council had initially favored a zone change from office to residential, but it took the unusual step of reversing itself upon second passage.
At the same time, the council granted first passage this month to a zone change from industrial to residential for The Village at Pawtuxet, a condominium project at 265 Post Rd., west of Pawtuxet Village.
The Planning Department supports that zone change because the street is mainly residential, Carruolo said. Developers Ronald J. Caniglia and Francis Spinella propose to renovate a dairy barn to accommodate 14 of the 23 condos planned for the site.
The council is scheduled to consider second passage next month.
In the next several months, the Planning Department expects to have a more controversial proposal on the table -- as many as 350 condominiums at the former Rocky Point amusement park. Current zoning there allows about 200 units.
The boom in condo construction has done little to make Warwick a more affordable city, Avedisian said. The units generally are marketed to buyers who can afford single-family houses, he said, but a growing number of Warwick residents can barely afford to rent.
"The average person who wants to rent in the city of Warwick needs to make double the minimum wage, so affordable housing is going to continue to be an issue that we have to deal with," he said.
As a result, "we'll see increased scrutiny of what's going to happen at the airport," he said. "If you take another 359 houses out of the mix [because of airport expansion], that's certainly going to have an impact."
"What would normally be considered the affordable neighborhoods are going to be gone," Avedisian said. "That's where we're headed."
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