Around Warren: Notes from the town planner

Posted 3/17/21

By Bob Rulli

After an unintentional hiatus, I am happy to report that I will be continuing my Around Town submissions every two weeks moving forward. If there are questions you would like …

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Around Warren: Notes from the town planner

Posted

By Bob Rulli

After an unintentional hiatus, I am happy to report that I will be continuing my Around Town submissions every two weeks moving forward. If there are questions you would like answered, please send them to my email below and I will do my best to get you an answer. If there are topics or events you feel I should address, send them to me at the same email address. What follows is an update and some useful information you might be interested in knowing.

Street lights
We are now almost two years into our street light conversion program and the town’s cost savings by converting to LED street lights is significant. We are also aware that some of you might have concerns and requests regarding the brightness or locations of lights. If so, there are options which our lighting vendor can apply. If you have lights that need to be addressed or you have concerns regarding our streetlights, please contact me at my email address below.

Metacom Avenue Revitalization Plan
You might have read in this paper or heard from your friends and neighbors, the town is embarking on an ambitious plan to reimagine and revitalize the Metacom Avenue corridor. You as members of the Warren community have an opportunity to be part of this process. As part of the proposed zoning amendments the Warren Town Council will consider something called Form Based Code. Form Based Code provides agreed upon design guidelines that incentives development consistent with the goals of the community. If you are interested in being part of a Metacom Avenue Form Based Code Advisory Work Group that will provide input to both the Planning Board and Town Council, as well as review new development proposals, please email me at the address below.

Board openings
In addition to the opportunity identified above, following the April 13 Town Council meeting, there will be openings on the Economic Development Board as well as one position on the Planning Board. Applications to be considered for any of these boards can be found on the Town’s website.

Plans
If you are interested in the plans for the Metacom Avenue revitalization effort or an interesting series of mapping addressing the impacts of sea level rise on the Market Street-Child Street areas, they are available on the town’s website under the Planning & Community Development tab.

Looking Ahead
As we are all aware, we are embarking on widespread vaccinations and hopefully emerging from the difficulties of the past year. As Spring arrives, while still needing to be vigilant, we should all be optimistic that we can begin to return to what is commonly referred to as the new normal. Let us continue to support our local economy. Many of our local businesses are your neighbors, they deserve our support. Please see my companion article regarding additional electric boxes which will be painted this spring, this is going to be a very enjoyable event.

Remembering Those We Lost
In closing and I do not want to end on a somber note, however, I feel we as a community need to acknowledge the reality of the last year. As of last week, not including those souls lost at our assisted living and nursing facilities, 50 of our friends and neighbors in Warren were lost to COVID-19. We would like to find a way to respectively honor those who we have lost. If you have ideas as to how to do this, please share them by emailing your thoughts.

Thanks for your time, I can be reached at brulli@townofwarren-ri.gov or 289-0529.

Mr. Rulli is the director of the Warren Office of Planning and Community Development

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.