Neighbors tried to stop a 133-unit apartment complex on Gano Street. A judge just tossed their case.

Wheeler Cowperthwaite, Providence Journal
·3 min read
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PROVIDENCE − A Superior Court Judge has denied the appeal seeking to overturn Providence's approval of a four-building, 133-unit apartment complex going up on Gano Street in Fox Point next to Gano Park.

Two adjacent property owners and a real estate developer located a half-mile drive away challenged the Providence City Plan Commission's approval of the project, as well as the height "adjustments" given to allow the buildings to increase the maximum height of each building, according to the city's final plan approval.

Their challenge first went to the Providence Zoning Board of Review, which heard the initial appeal. The Zoning Board of Review rejected their objections, leading to the appeal filed in Superior Court.

What's going there? Four apartment buildings going up next to Gano Park. Here's what to know.

Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Lanphear ruled in favor of the city and the developer of the Power Street Apartments, Bahman Jalili, in the Feb. 26 decision, finding that the two neighboring property owners, Robert Clark and Mary Casale, and developer, Fili Investments LLC, had no injuries to have standing to sue and that they were not entitled to notice of the project. Their lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.

Construction on the four buildings has been ongoing during the appeal process.

Lauren Jones, representing Jalili and his company, Power 250, LLC, said he believed the judge "got it right," as did the Zoning Board before him.

What were the arguments against the project?

The parcel in question is in the city's Commercial 2, or C-2 zone. That allows buildings, by right, to go up 4 stories and 50 feet. However, the developer wanted to increase the height of the new buildings by 3 to 7 feet.

The project expands across four lots, all on a slight incline and all less than 10,000 square feet, which means they are not required to have parking. The project will have "structured parking" underneath each apartment building for a total of 68 spaces.

An excavator dumps dirt into the back of a semi-trailer on Nov. 3, 2023, as works begins on the construction of four 5-story apartment buildings on Gano and Power streets in Providence's Fox Point neighborhood.
An excavator dumps dirt into the back of a semi-trailer on Nov. 3, 2023, as works begins on the construction of four 5-story apartment buildings on Gano and Power streets in Providence's Fox Point neighborhood.

Providing the "structured parking" allowed the developer, under the city's zoning rules, to request an "adjustment" to allow buildings to go taller. The maximum height increase was 24 feet and two stories in non-residential zones. Granting the adjustment was at the discretion of the City Plan Commission.

Clark, Casale and Fili Investments LLC argued that the city should not have given the developer the height adjustment and that giving them the height adjustment moved the development from being a "minor plan," which doesn't require abutters to receive notice, to a major plan, which does.

While Fili Investments LLC objected to the development during a City Plan Commission meeting, Clark and Casale did not.

The trade off between developers and the city to allow for added height or decreased setbacks in exchange for structured parking, is a key facet of many recent projects, including the proposed three floors of residential units above a single-story commercial building on Reservoir Avenue that received city approval, and a proposed mixed-use building on Wickenden Street, which was shot down.

Lanphear relied on a 2021 court case, where abutters tried to stop a development on the grounds that a "design waiver transformed the project" from a minor plan into a major plan.

The judge wrote that the reclassification of projects from minor to major is based on waivers or modifications to state requirements, not to a city's ordinances. The slight height increase was based in the city's ordinance.

For a more thorough breakdown of the project, read our story breaking down the project.

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Reach reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite at wcowperthwaite@providencejournal.com or follow him on Twitter @WheelerReporter.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Gano Street apartment complex can continue after neighbors lose appeal