PAWTUCKET DOWNTOWN DESIGN PLAN FINAL ... - VHB.com

VISION Concepts
HOW DO I MOVE A BUSINESS OR DEVELOP PROPERTY
CONCEPT 5 USE DOWNTOWN GUIDANCE
Guidance goals
Variance Free Environment
Support other Downtown efforts
Provide development information
Guidance components
Fixing what is broken
Strengthening good ideas
Lay the foundation
Encourage local efforts
Development guidelines available
While often not an overt element of physical infrastructure, a City’s regulatory
framework sets a community’s goals into action through the process of private
development. With the increase of residential and commercial development
in the early 2000s, Pawtucket’s existing regulatory system was tested by new
types of development. Many of these projects did not fit in the original zoning
goals and thus the process developed a history of special use permits and
variances to accomplish what are now standard practices in other successful
communities of the same size. This pattern of allowing special exceptions
as a matter of course has left the regulatory bodies without a clear path and
development with extra hurdles.
Downtown Guidance is intended to do some regulatory housekeeping so that
the city encourages the types of development it wants and discourages the
types it doesn’t. It also hopes to foster supportive projects that benefit the
city’s downtown and to leverage positive density and activity.
Downtown Guidance includes:
Fixing what is broken
This work will take care of zoning and land-use regulatory housekeeping that
will allow mixed-use and multi-tenant commercial use projects by right, reduce
special use permits, and change residential density limits.
Strengthening Good ideas
This initiative will shift parts of the Development Plan Review from the
Ordinance to the Regulations, and employ the power of zero to eliminate
parking requirements for commercial development, setback requirements in
the commercial downtown and make adjustments that can bring variances to
zero as well.
Lay the Foundation
This will help future regulatory projects by looking in a more sophisticated way
at design in the design guidelines for development, take a look at form-based
codes, and investigate incentive zoning logics that can involve the transfer of
development rights, boost green development and look forward towards how
downtown’s changes can affect the city as a whole.
Encourage Local Efforts
A set of local citizens that have organized into a neighborhood association that
is the precursor to a downtown business improvement district are hoping to
improve the quality of how Main Street looks. The PDDP encourages these
local grown efforts to raise money and incrementally improve the streetscape.
Make Development Guidelines available online
When the new design guidelines and incentives are available, the PDDP wants
to support the Pawtucket Foundation’s goals to market the downtown and
make the information freely available. The PDDP website will be transformed
into this public space for people, entrepreneurs and developers to find good
information.
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PDDP VISION