Newport This Week

Broadway Zoning Change Being Considered



An attorney may get his wish to change zoning along one section of Broadway.

The Newport Planning Board will send a positive recommendation to the City Council and the Zoning Board to rezone an area with six commercial buildings from residential zoning to a limited business zoning district.

The unanimous recommendation was taken at the board’s June 7 meeting.

Attorney Stephen M. Brusini suggested the change. Brusini owns the building Renaissance Fitness was previously housed in (Renaissance Fitness has since moved to 221 Third St.), one of six buildings that would be affected by the zoning change. The others are The Parlor Restaurant and Bar, Water’s Edge Flower Shop, C.H. Charles Five and Dime Store, and a garage and storage area at 9 Gould St.

Also in the district is a federal post office and Newport Hospital. Federal properties do not have to conform to local zoning.

Brusini’s application cited “non-conforming uses” in the area within buildings constructed in the 1950s. He has owned his property since 2014. It currently houses a legal office and the fitness center. It was originally used as a post office.

“I believe the [residential] zoning designation for my building is inconsistent with its historic use and with a number of the surrounding properties,” he said.

Historic past uses do not conform with present uses, he said.

“As you come down Broadway to the more commercial portion, these [buildings] form a transition zone of their own,” he said.

Since this is a transitional zone, he was forwarding the petition to rezone them as limited business.

Brusini approached all the owners of the buildings, who are listed as co-applicants on the petition. He said there are no residents in his building and, to his knowledge, the others are commercial only.

The board did not want gas stations, fast food restaurants, drive-throughs or commercial parking lots to go up there. Even standard restaurants, which would be allowed in the limited business zone, came under scrutiny.

“My concern is that a five-and-dime can become a restaurant. That’s a use-by-right,” said Vice Chair Jeff Brooks.

Brooks cited another area where a business wanted to convert into a five-star restaurant, resulting in an uproar in the neighborhood.

“The people heard about it and they came in force to the Planning Board … and that’s why it didn’t pass,” board member John Oliveira said. “If it does turn into a restaurant, that’s bad on us.”

Board chair Kim Salerno said the area has a “different character,” adding, “The people in that neighborhood may actually want a restaurant. There actually has been discussion of this change for a long time.”

Commercial buildings have different code requirements from residential and historic buildings, she noted.

Brooks asked if other property owners in the area were contacted. “If there was going to be a change of use, I would have,” he said. “These have always been used as commercial and have always been harmonious in the neighborhood.”

No one spoke during the public hearing portion of the petition.

Standard restaurants shall require a special-use permit under the board’s recommendations if anyone desires that change. The Parlor operates under a special-use permit, said Patricia Reynolds, director of planning.

“Nothing in the rezone will preclude it from being a restaurant going forward,” she said. “Any expansion of that would have to have a special-use permit [through] the City Council.”

She said, in her opinion, the new zoned use would be “very compatible” with the surrounding uses.

The petition next goes to the City Council.

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