NORTH PROVIDENCE – Members of the Town Council say they’ve been researching the facts of the case that led to a larger-than-originally-proposed storage facility being built on Douglas Avenue, and what they’ve discovered makes them want to know more.
Council President Dino Autiello said the council is planning to convene next month to hold a vote on whether to issue a stop-work order on the project until “someone can tell us how what they’re doing over there is legal.”
He said he and Councilor Mario Martone, an attorney by trade, have had a lot of questions, but to this point have received no satisfactory answers on how such a large facility is being built behind residents’ homes.
Autiello told The Local Insider they were unable to fund a paper trail or record of any administrative change allowing a large project than what was initially proposed and approved nine years ago. There was also no vote that he knows of.
The council president said he shares the opinion of the entire council that this is a big deal, as it’s a “completely different project than what I voted for” as the only current councilor on the council during approvals in 2017. He said the reason this is so critically important is because it seemingly calls into question all zoning decisions made in town and whether larger projects could be carried out more often to circumvent a controversial approval process.
The Local Insider previously reported on neighbors’ issue with the large storage facility rising up behind their homes, and how it is so different from what was originally proposed.
Mayor Charles Lombardi said Monday that if councilors feel they need to stop the project, then he’s fine with that move. He said he had no input on the approval process.
Martone said that the best he can tell, it looks as if the lots where the storage facility is being built near Shaw’s were either commercial village or commercial general in nature, which do not allow storage, so a bunch of requests were made in 2017 to allow that use.
The big thing with all of those approvals, he said, was the caveat that everything conform to what was presented, which was for eight single-story storage buildings similar to what’s seen on Route 44.
Martone said this isn’t his area of legal expertise, but he just doesn’t see any way how what’s happening now should have gotten a nod later through administrative approval, and that it should have gone back to the decision-making boards.
“I don’t see how they’re allowed to build what they’re building right now,” he said.
Martone emphasized that his issue with any sort of administrative approval were that approvals were specifically contingent on plans presented, and if a major change was wanted, there is no way it should have been done administratively instead of through an official and public process.
Martone agreed that this issue could set a precedent in town, and it’s important to get it right.
