BURRILLVILLE -- The Town Council voted unanimously last night to approve zoning changes that town leaders said will prevent Burrillville's main artery, Route 102, from becoming as congested as Mineral Spring Avenue in North Providence and Pawtucket.
The council approved the changes after a public hearing that drew about 75 people, enough of a crowd for the council to move the meeting from the smaller council chambers in Town Hall to the Austin T. Levy School cafeteria next door.
At the hearing, some residents expressed concern that Burrillville leaders want to eliminate the highway commercial zoning district along Route 102, which would allow the development of strip malls and large retail centers along the town's main artery.
"I'm not fully against this plan," said Paul Vanasse, who introduced himself as a Burrillville homeowner and future business owner in town. However, he said "business begets business," and he expressed concern about "severe restrictions" on highway commercial zoning.
"I think to take Mineral Spring Avenue and compare it to 102 in Burrillville is comparing apples to oranges," he said.
A few residents said 102 could never turn into a Mineral Spring Avenue because this and future Town Councils would never allow that to happen. Some said the town makes it very hard to open any new business in town, and so they had no concerns about 102 becoming overdeveloped.
But town leaders referred to the Route 102 Study Committee that has been working for about a year gathering public input about the roadway and the residents' wishes for it.
While a handful of residents last night said strip commercial businesses would be just fine and should be allowed to go on Route 102 or wherever business owners wanted to put them, town leaders stressed that such sentiments are not what they've heard throughout the 102 planning process.
Strip malls are exactly what town leaders said the Route 102 Study Committee wants to prevent. Town Planner Thomas J. Kravitz read from the town's current zoning ordinance, which described the highway commercial district as allowing strip commercial buildings with "large parking lots, usually in front of the building."
"That's pretty self-explanatory," Kravitz told the residents. "What that's going to produce for the town -- it's pretty clear. You're right. [Comparing Route 102 to] Mineral Spring Avenue is comparing apples to oranges now. True."
But with that highway commercial district, 30 years from now, Burrillville's 102 would be just as busy as Mineral Spring Avenue and other congested roadways across the state, Kravitz said.
Lawyer John Shekarchi, who spoke on behalf of his clients and property owners Roland Montigny and Ernie Slater, asked the council to exempt their land near the Burrillville Middle School and the Western Hills Auto Parts junkyard from any council action last night.
During a break in the public hearing, Shekarchi said his clients disagreed with the town's idea to change their land from residential, single-family zoning to village-commercial zoning. That change would require them to build mixed-use buildings rather than the single-family homes they've been working for years to build.
Despite councilor William E. Gonyea's attempt to exempt Slater's and Montigny's land, and one other parcel, from the zoning changes -- at least in the short-term -- Gonyea's motion died when no other councilor would second it.
Shekarchi said after the meeting that he hoped to meet with town officials and find another way to meet his clients' needs.
If that doesn't happen, he said, they would have to appeal last night's decision to Superior Court.
Reporter Kate Bramson can be reached by e-mail at kbramsonXprojo.com
