Regardless of one’s position regarding the Belvedere development proposal, there is irrefutable fact. The administrative treatment of zoning and planning board applications, and especially of complex ones, is a colossal mess. There is a way to make it better for applicants and objectors. It is called Unified Development Review.

Unified Development Review arose from a new law passed in the Rhode Island legislature in 2016. Recognizing the mercury retrograde effect of a multi-board process, the Legislature empowered cities and towns to consolidate applications formerly requiring zoning and planning board review into one application, with the planning board, in addition to its usual charge, having the power to grant variances and special use permits.

The legislature enacted this law for a reason. The current dual-board process is overly time consuming and imposes excessive costs on applicants and taxpayers and creates multiple opportunities for filing appeals.

One appeal is time consuming for every participant and involves significant expense incurred by the applicant and the objector and the taxpayers. My personal observation is the applicant in a dual-board process becomes a ping pong ball, swatted back and forth between two boards with different administrators who may or may not have different personal biases.

Here is a real-world example. You are the applicant. You propose to sub-divide the land comprising your homestead to build a new home on the subdivided lot for your daughter. Unfortunately, the lot will be undersized and from the size of the home your daughter needs for a growing family, dimensional variances are needed. You don’t get along with your neighbor. He thinks your dogs bark too much.

Here is a common result under the current process for a simple minor subdivision to build a house for a family member on your homestead lot:

1. You hire a lawyer to represent you and sign an engagement letter defining his or her services at a rate of $200 per hour. Attendance at a board meeting, depending on agenda position, is usually a 2.5-hour process. So, each meeting will cost you $500.

2. You engage an engineer to prepare the subdivision plan detailing the new home location and the required dimensional variances. You sign an engagement letter with the engineer calling for a $2,500 fee to prepare the plan and a $200 hourly charge for meeting attendance, if required. The survey plan takes 30 days.

3. After your attorney receives the subdivision plan, he prepares two applications, one to the zoning board for the dimensional variances, and a second to the planning board for approval of a minor subdivision. You pay two filing fees, $125 to the zoning board and $200 to the planning board.

4. Your attorney files the two applications, and hearings are scheduled. Unfortunately, you missed the filing date for next month’s meeting of the planning board. Since it has to give an advisory opinion on the dimensional variances to the zoning board, both hearings are put off by an additional 30 days.

5. You next schedule a “Technical Review Committee” (“TRC”) meeting with a few members of the Planning Board and its administrator. Your neighbor shows up and raises an objection that the side yard variance request is too much, and the house is too big. The technical review committee suggests you make changes to accommodate him. You agree, grudgingly.

6. You go back to the engineer after speaking to your daughter and you change the dimensions of the house to do away with the need of a side-yard variance, but a new need for a rear yard variance arises. You go back to your lawyer (who attended the TRC meeting at your cost) and ask him to amend the applications after paying your engineer to change the plans. The lawyer charges $300 to amend the applications and file them with the Town.

7. If you are using an architect to design the house, those fees mount from every change.

8. You go back to the TRC and your neighbor objects again, saying the house is too long and it will block the light in his back yard. Nonetheless, the TRC recommends approval of the proposal to the Planning Board.

9. You next appear before the Planning Board for two things: a) master plan review of your minor subdivision (the first of three stages of planning board approval) and b) an advisory opinion to the zoning board regarding your rear yard variance. The Planning Board approves the plan and makes a positive recommendation to the zoning board, over the objection of your recalcitrant neighbor. You breathe a sign of relief.

10. Your neighbor appeals the master plan approval to the Zoning Board sitting as the Board of Appeals. Your zoning board application is thus put on hold until the zoning board completes considering the appeal.

11. The appeal occurs before the Zoning Board, and despite demonstrated reservations of some members, the appeal is denied. Your neighbor does not appeal this decision in the required, knowing he has another bite at the apple.

12. Your hearing before the zoning board occurs in the ensuing month, during which time the board’s constitution has changed from new appointments, resignations, etc. At this hearing, two of the new members think the house is too big and you are creating an unnecessary hardship. Needing 4 of 5 votes, you decide to go back to the drawing board. You withdraw the application.

13. After calming your daughter, a new design for the home is made with less intrusive side yard and rear yard encroachments as a compromise.

14. You go back to the TRC of the Planning Board, lawyer in tow after paying your engineer to revise the plans again. Your neighbor shows up again to object, but from having sympathy from all you have gone through, the TRC unanimously recommends the Planning Board approve the plan and make a positive recommendation to the Zoning Board.

15. Your lawyer prepares a new zoning board application noting the different plan and dimensional relief variances. You pay another filing fee of $125.

16. You and your lawyer and your engineer attend the planning board hearing and from the grace of God you receive unanimous approval of the master plan and a positive recommendation to the zoning board. Out of respect for your large out-of-pockets, the Planning Board also agrees to consolidate the next two stages (preliminary and final plan approval) into one. It also saves you from having to attend and bear the costs of another meeting by giving the Director of Community Development authority to sign the final plan without a hearing. You breathe another sigh of relief.

17. Throughout this laborious process, the Town has legal representation at all of the meetings and hearings, resulting in mounting costs to the taxpayers.

18. Being the vindictive sort, your neighbor again appeals this approval to the zoning board. You show up at this hearing with your lawyer and engineer in tow, but the neighbor does appear, and the appeal is denied. You pray he does not appeal the zoning board’s decision to the Superior Court and he does not, dodging the bullet on more legal expenses for you and the taxpayers.

19. At long last, the ordeal comes to an end when the zoning board approves your request for dimensional relief.

20. Your engineer prepares the final plans for approval by the administrative officer and you pay the filing fees to record the plan and two board decisions in the land evidence records.

21. You (and the taxpayers) have thankfully avoided the cost and delay from the neighbor’s right to appeal to the Superior Court at one or both of two different times: a) from the master plan approval and b) from zoning board approval.

22. When your son-in-law’s job is transferred to North Carolina, the project is scrapped, and you are left with an approval you decide not to use and a pile of bills.

Here is the process under the Unified Development Review allowed by state law:

1. You file a single application to the Planning Board containing both the subdivision and dimensional variance requests. Presumably, you pay only one filing fee.

2. The TRC meeting is held, your neighbor objects, and you agree to make changes suggested by the TRC and receive a recommendation of approval of the minor subdivision and of the dimensional variances.

3. The Planning Board meeting is scheduled. On the same night, the Planning Board first considers master plan approval of the minor subdivision and it approves all of the dimensional variances from a majority vote.

4. Your aggrieved neighbor appeals this decision to the Zoning Board, as the Board of Appeals. It denies the appeal.

5. Having the right to do so, your neighbor decides not to appeal the Zoning Board’s decision to the Superior Court.

6. Your son receives a job offer from North Carolina, but from the prospect of a beautiful new home in Bristol, he declines.

7. The home is built, and peace is made with your neighbor.

What take-aways result from these hypotheticals?

1. The Town Council should consider permitting Unified Development Review for zoning and planning board applications in Bristol. Under the law, the Town can designate what type of application can take advantage of the streamlined process.

2. The Unified Development Review process is more efficient and less costly to applicants and objectors and the taxpayers.

3. These benefits come without sacrificing legal recourse for objectors, who retain redress from administrative or judicial appeals.

4. There is already precedent for the unified process. In Rhode Island, state law already mandates a Planning Board assume the Zoning Board’s role in a streamlined process considering applications filed under the State affordable housing act.

Bristol’s website says it is “open for business.” Turning to the Belvedere process and regardless of your position, the process endured by that applicant shows that Bristol is not business friendly when applied to complex and costly projects.

Should the Unified Development Review process be applied to a future project along the lines of this one? Having been in the trenches in Bristol on applications of this nature, it is my opinion the answer is yes. Doing so would give an applicant a truer and more efficient and less costly path to receiving or not receiving an approval. At the same time, it will fully preserve legal recourse for objectors.
In my opinion, the fragmented process exposed from the Belvedere proposal is itself a deterrent to others making significant investment in our Town, and that needs to change.

Mr. Sousa, of 232 Hope St., represented Belvedere at Thames developer Jim Roiter in the early stages of that application being heard before Bristol boards.