PROVIDENCE — With the future composition of the city’s industrial waterfront up in the air, nothing related to the area is free from controversy, even a school project.

A group of students from the Rhode Island School of Design have spent the past few months examining waterfronts around the world — from cities as varied as Le Havre, France; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Portland, Ore. — and culling what lessons they might hold for the future of the Providence waterfront. They will present their findings at a symposium tomorrow night at the Save the Bay headquarters at Fields Point.

But this has made the industrial businesses of the city’s waterfront wary. They are currently locked in a battle with the city over the future zoning designation of the upper Allens Avenue industrial corridor (the city wants to change it to mixed use, the businesses want it to remain industrial) and assurances have been given that much of this will be hashed out at a planning charette in late February.

But Joel Cohen, coowner of Promet Shipyard on Allens Avenue, said the waterfront businesses were not included in the analysis, and they are in the dark about what exactly is planned for tomorrow.

“Nobody’s knocked on our door and asked for any input from us,” Cohen said. “Whatever it is, nobody’s contacted any of the stakeholders on Allens Avenue. You’d think they’d want to do that.”

Cohen and his fellow business owners have banded together under the banner of the Working Waterfront Alliance to oppose the city’s changes. He said that they fear that this is jumping the gun on the decision process.

“The charette is being touted as a major battleground,” Cohen said, and he wants to be sure that it stays that way. “We’ll have to wait and see what happens, we don’t have a clue as to what the presentation is. Hopefully this might shed some light on some things — we can be optimistic.”

Bonnie Nickerson, the city’s director of long-term planning, said that the waterfront businesses need not worry. Tomorrow’s event, she said, is intended only to ask questions, not answer them — to “prime the pump” for February’s charette.

“Hopefully people will see it for what it is, which is posing questions rather than giving answers,” Nickerson said. “It’s a very tough issue, there’s really not an easy answer. Because it’s such a tough issue, we want to have a lot of resources working on this.”

The planning department specifically avoided asking the RISD team to come up with any proposals for Providence’s waterfront. Rather, as part of what Providence is calling the “Bay City” project, they are to look at places around the world with waterfront conditions and provide comparative information for locals to consider.

As the city moves ahead and makes use of that information, Nickerson said, the waterfront businesses will be involved.

“We absolutely will be talking with the Working Waterfront folks as we go forward,” she said.

The meeting was originally located at Providence Piers, the waterfront site that developer Patrick T. Conley hopes to turn into residences and a hotel. But, Cohen said, the businesses complained that it was not a neutral site, and the meeting is now planned for Save the Bay at 7 p.m.

dbarbari@projo.com