Developers John Lannan and Ron Louro, who are currently in the midst of seeking Comprehensive Permit approval to build a 25-unit condo development on the land where the 176-year-old Liberty Street School currently sits unoccupied, want to make one thing perfectly clear — they aren’t here to strong-arm anyone.

Louro, a Warren native and business owner in town, pulled up a picture of an old polaroid from his phone. It showed a young child and his mother in peak early 70s style, standing close to the very same spot that the interview for this story was being conducted; near the front door of the Liberty Street School. It was a photo of a six-year-old Louro from when he attended Liberty School as a first grader in 1972.

The photo symbolizes the heart of their case asking for the trust of the local community, many members of which showed up during last week’s meeting of the Planning Board to critique the development.

“Ron and I have been developers for 22 years as partners,” said Lannan, president of The Lannan Companies, a Bristol-based site and utility construction and land development firm. “We’re not pigs, we’re not bullies, we’re not bringing in foreign lawyers and hammering away…We’re local guys.”

Lannan may be more widely known among southerly neighbors in Bristol, where he has developed multiple parcels, including the large former Tavares Farm property. In that process, after creating 15 house lots that became Deer Run Estates, he donated around 27 acres of land back to the Town. When the Town approached him to see if he would entertain selling another 14 acres of the property at a discount in a partnership with DEM, he agreed, and that became the 100 Acre Woods walking trail and conservation area, located just off Route 114 near the Warren Town Line.

“I’m very proud of the fact that we’ve donated more land for open space for our projects than have been developed on,” he said.

Central to their plan here is to rejuvenate the derelict school building, one of the oldest standing schools in Rhode Island (built in 1847), and turn it into 7 condominium units. Another 18 units would be fit within a second building that they plan to construct in the rear of the property, and 7 of the units would be listed at 80% of the area median income and available only to those on limited incomes.

Addressing concerns
Lannan said he and Louro have brought the same kind of collegial approach shown in Bristol to the Liberty Street project. They have attended multiple Technical Review Committee meetings, hearing out neighbors and advocates’ concerns, and say they have been willing to compromise on multiple issues, such as scaling back the initial scale of the secondary building by 10%, opting to repair the school’s crumbling cupola, and offering to take down the unsightly fire escapes and pay to install a sprinkler system in the old building.

The controversial removal of two linden trees at the front of the property is another issue Lannan has showed a willingness to compromise on. Although his engineer said last week that both trees should be removed to improve emergency access to the property, there exists a possibility that one could possibly be saved by utilizing vertical pruning; which Lannan said he was willing to do.

“The trees are ours, and the cupola is ours,” Lannan said. “We could have come in here and done a whole bunch of stuff, but we didn’t.”

Lannan also mentioned that a direct abutter, Jason Rainone, who lives directly behind the school on Miller Street, has been helpful in pointing out potential issues, such as the possible placement of dumpsters; which he said he’d happily move to another location. As for Rainone’s concerns about the excavation required to build the new building killing the plants on his property line, Lannan said his decades of experience as a site contractor gives him a high degree of certainty that those fears won’t be realized.

“I’m reaching out to him personally, and I'll go back over and see him. He was a gentleman, he reached out early, he invited us into his home,” Lannan said. “He was the best neighbor, and he’s not going to be hurt by us.”

As for the issue most universally argued about within any possible development in Warren — parking — Lannan said that there is only so much that can be done.

The development would require a variance for the total number of parking spaces (Warren dictates needing 1.5 spaces per unit, while the project only allots 1.08). Many of those spaces require parallel parking, but there’s nothing in the law that says such a setup is grounds for denial. And since the project is going through the Comprehensive Permit application, requiring a variance to parking is not legally enough grounds to deny it. On top of that, the law will change at the state level on Jan. 1 to only require one parking space per unit of a new development.

Although that law change won’t ostensibly apply to the Liberty Street development, Lannan said it is just an example of how the state is prioritizing the need for affordable housing units to be built over the concerns of insufficient parking.

“We know the whole Town of Warren is in need of housing,” he said. “We know they need to lower prices here. The rent is ridiculous, the cost of a house is ridiculous.”

Lannan said that people moving into the units would likely be a mix of empty nesters, retirees, and younger, career-driven people (some who could reasonably work from home and not require a daily car). While admitting that no one truly knows how many cars the development will ultimately need to accommodate, he said the economic value of such a development is hard to understate.

“They're gonna walk out of here, walk down that street and they're gonna go eat. They're gonna walk down to the bookstores, walk down there to Dunkin' Donuts, and just keep going, as pedestrians,” he said. “The value in an urban setting for a housing project like this is immeasurable.”

Financials will shed more light on possibilities
One of the sticking points for the planning board, which tabled the application last week, was due to Lannan and Louro not providing a financial pro forma highlighting what the anticipated cost of market rate and affordable units would be, along with the costs they would incur for building the development and how they would finance it; essentially a run-down of how much estimated profit they will be making.

“We thought sincerely that we had a completed application, and we were prepared. We made our presentation and it really wasn’t until towards the end that we found that out,” Lannan said. “It’s on us. We’ve got to be better prepared, but it wasn’t on that comprehensive checklist that we had to submit and we thought we had a completed app. But it still falls on us, and we’re still responsible for our own actions, and it cost us another month.”

For Lannan and Louro, while they stressed a continued willingness to compromise, time is money. They’ve already spent an estimated $1 million without generating anything in return. Lannan said the pro forma will be ready by Nov. 17 as directed and looks forward to the Monday, Nov. 27 meeting of the planning board to get things moving again.

When asked if the financial information shows the feasibility to reduce the overall footprint of the additional building and the number of units, Lannan said that it was certainly a possibility.

“We’ve got a sizable investment now with obviously no return, but we’re smiling about it. We’re going to work with the Town and get this done. We’re enjoying the collegial atmosphere as well, and we can take a few hits from the neighbors. It’s not personal, it’s never personal. That is all their opinion, and they’re entitled to it,” he said. “I hope the Town hears this and knows we want to work with them and we can sit down and figure this out. Let’s move forward. We’re not going to be pigs. Just work with us.”