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The below letter was sent to House Speaker Gordon Fox by the Jewelry District Association regarding the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission:
27 June 2011
Dear Mr. Speaker and Providence Representatives:
The Jewelry District Association (JDA) strongly urges you to take no action on Senate Bill 114 as Amended.
JDA membership is made up of a broad cross-section of businesses and residents and institutions, including the largest employers in Providence. For the past six years the JDA has participated in all the City’s planning sessions on the Jewelry District along with interested parties from throughout the City and the State. Two and a half years ago the JDA and the Providence Foundation sponsored a study by the Cecil Group that outlined strategies for creating a thriving mixed-use community in the Jewelry District. Now we and others are engaged with the City and their consultants, Perkins + Will, in work that will result in I-195 parcel develop-ment plans, updated citywide zoning and a streamlined permitting process.
With no regard for these planning efforts, Senate Bill 114 proposes a Redevelopment Commission for the I-195 parcels that has sweeping powers and little or no checks and balances. As one critic said, it creates, “a city within a city,” which flies in the face of comprehensive planning.
The Journal had a few good articles this weekend that we all should be reading:
→ Editorial: Stop Route 195 commission
The overriding state interest in the land is its federally mandated sale at fair-market value. A commission is not required for that. Indeed, a commission may retard both the land’s sale and its development.
Instead, the land should be sold to be developed under existing municipal authority. Let market forces guide its progress. That would be much more efficient than seven commissioners and their train of agencies, lawyers, consultants and other hangers-on. In fact, as of now the bill looks as if it is intended to create the next secure feed bag for the well-connected.
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