We are witnessing the repercussions when local officials sit on their hands and state leaders promise to fight state overreach but vote to erode local control of our housing developments. According to Turn to 10 (WJAR), “The owner of Faith Hill Farm in East Greenwich has filed an appeal after the town’s planning board approved a housing development on the property next to the farm. After the Ridgeline Estates and Condos development project was approved in March, crews have started cutting down trees on the property. ‘It’s been horrible,’ Pam Maloof, who owns Faith Hill Farm, said. ‘It’s like a warzone around here.’ According to Maloof, the noisy work is taking a toll on her business. ‘There have been horses that have been sick because of the ongoing stress… Seven to ten boarders have already left.’ Maloof said on Wednesday, a staff member was injured and needed to go to a walk-in clinic after the sound of a falling tree spooked a horse they were handling, resulting in a serious cut to their finger.”
While East Greenwich officials watch as this farm business is threatened and the character of our community is forever changed, elected leaders from other communities are proactively promoting policies that restore local control and push back against state overreach of our planning and zoning. In Smithfield, Town Councilor Michael Iannotti has proposed legislation that would provide relief for communities overwhelmed by high density housing developments. House Bill 5957 and Senate Bill 0502 would allow municipalities that have not met the state’s 10 percent housing affordability requirement to limit the number of units a developer could build, based on a more favorable ratio of affordable to market rate units. According to The Valley Breeze, “Iannotti proposes that a project with one affordable unit per market rate unit will be given a density bonus of one additional market rate unit. He said the purpose of the bill is to combat high-density development.” House Bill 5957 was introduced by Representatives Santucci, Quattrocchi, Nardone, Fascia, Place, and Chippendale. Senate Bill 0502 was introduced by Senators Tikoian, Patalano, LaMountain, Ciccone, Burke, Felag, Urso, Dimitri, Rogers, and Thompson.
Another measure, House Bill 5689, would set lower quotas for affordable housing projects in smaller communities. According to the Johnston Sunrise, the bill “would create a more involved local approval process before a large or ‘substantial’ multi-family affordable-housing project could be approved in a smaller community. [The] bill describes substantial projects as any with more than 60 units and defines smaller communities in Rhode Island as having a population of fewer than 35,000 residents,” such as East Greenwich. One of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. “Deborah Fellela spoke before the [House Municipal Government & Housing] committee regarding her proposal. She emphasized that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to housing does not work for every Rhode Island city and town. She pointed out that large-scale, multi-family projects can have a far greater impact on infrastructure and local services in smaller towns than they would in larger cities. This bill was sponsored by Representatives Fellela, Fascia, Perez, Quattrochi, Nardone, Santucci, and Chippendale.
Finally, House Bill 5690 would repeal the Low to Moderate Housing Act in its entirety. This bill, which has been held for further study, was introduced by Representatives Quattrocchi, Nardone, Place, Hopkins, Paplauskas, Santucci, Fascia, and Chippendale.
If you support these bills, please send this prewritten email to the Senate Housing and Municipal Government Committee and this email to the House Municipal Government & Housing Committee. Please make sure that you add your name and address at the end of the email, and feel free to modify the body of the message.
Join us for our May 19th Monthly Meeting in which Pam Maloof, the owner of Faith Hill Farm, will be our guest speaker. In the meantime, you can reach out to Pam to request a yard sign in support of her cause.
And most importantly, hold your local and state officials accountable in 2026 by not rewarding them for their inaction and dishonesty.
