The Tiverton Planning Board is proposing a major re-write of the town’s residential zoning map, including the elimination of the R-80 zoning district and addition of a new R-120 district that would limit development within it to parcels larger than about three acres. In addition, some areas currently zoned R-40 and R-60 would be incorporated into the new 120 zone.

Following the board’s unanimous vote to recommend the new zone to the Tiverton Town Council, the council is expected to hold a public hearing on the matter in late June.

Zoning board members said at a recent meeting that the proposed new zone would, if approved, ease development pressure on many vulnerable areas, including those that have limited water. Preventing development on lands that can’t support it is key, members said:

“We’re not eliminating development by any stretch of the imagination,” board member Patricia Hilton said. “But what we are hoping to do is to keep it to a lesser amount ... based on what the environment can handle. We already know that there are neighborhoods in Tiverton where people don’t drink the water (and) we’ve already developed past the land’s capacity to really handle it.”

“There’s a benefit for everybody here, not just existing homeowners, but even developers in the future.”

The new zoning districts came about through cooperation between the planning board and Rhode Island NEMO (Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials), run out of URI.

Tiverton currently has 7,500 single family homes, and the most recent buildout analysis done by the town showed that, conservatively, 3,100 additional single homes could potentially be built, not including parcels that already have a home on them but could be subdivided. If those too were to be developed, “that’s another potentially 6,000 single family homes,” Hamilton said.

While she said developers planning to build on larger parcels may push back against the town’s plans, “there’s protection for them” under the proposed changes “because at some point ... you might not be able to subdivide at all because you can’t get water.”

Not all are sure. One resident who asked not to be named said that if the changes go through, they would hurt him and others. He is planning a small development in town and fears the new maps, if approved, would threaten the financial viability of his project.

“This is huge, he said of the upcoming public hearing. There’s going to be a lot of angry people in the audience.”

Editor’s note: The Sakonnet Times requested a copy of the proposed new zoning district map, but one had not yet been prepared before deadline.