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Regional planning council improves life in South County |
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Tuesday, 29 April 2008 |
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By JOEL BARRETT
SOUTH KINGSTOWN - The regional planning council has embarked on a four-pronged approach to make South County a better place to live and work. The Washington County Regional Planning Council’s “Congress of Councils” annual meeting Wednesday attracted a diverse crowd from Charlestown to North Kingstown and Block Island. Representatives from each town - from planners to elected officials - heard WCRPC Executive Director Jeff Broadhead outline the coming year’s efforts to improve life in South County.
Four major efforts are under way, he told the crowd at Lilliana’s at Tower Hill. The first, he said, is the council’s role in the Borderlands project that looks at communities along the border of Rhode Island and Connecticut and works to see their villagesflourish. The Rhode Island Foundation is footing part of the bill for the Borderlands project, Broadhead said. Exeter has been matched up with Killingly, Conn., and the project will allow residents, officials and others to undergo a “visioning” process. The process will allow officials to research the communities’ assets, come up with specific goals and then help local officials implement them. The end goal is to build better village centers that reflect what residents want and need while avoiding haphazard development and sprawl. The second major effort being undertaken by the council is its role in an effort to determine how southern Rhode Island will be rebuilt when and if a major hurricane causes extensive damage from Westerly to North Kingstown. “We’re in line for a big storm and the question is what do we want (South County) to look like when it's rebuilt,” Broadhead said. He described the mission is to come up with a “smart” hurricane recovery plan and development standards. The council is working with the Coastal Resources Council and aided by a R.I. seagrant. The study and recommendations should take a couple of years, he said. The third major effort in the works is the introduction of a planning and zoning tool called transfer development rights as well as an evaluation of potential other planning tools that can ease the burden of strip mall development and oversized lots with low density. The theory behind TDR is that an owner of two pieces of property could trade conservation on one piece of land for a higher density on another. The final project is the exploration of the benefits and ways to implement municipal shared services in this era of decreasing state revenues and rising costs of doing business. The approach can be applied to everything from the purchasing of goods, services, equipment and vehicles. The benefits can be widespread, he said. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 01 May 2008 )
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