The Garden City Alliance in Cranston, R.I. is concerned that the proposed entertainment facility would bring extra traffic, as well as light and noise pollution. The developer’s assessment says that the volumes of traffic to and from the site at peak travel times on weekdays would be lower than when the previous business on the site, Citizens Bank, was in operation.
The Garden City Alliance in Cranston, R.I. is on a mission to organize robust opposition against a developer’s proposal for a Topgolf entertainment facility on the expansive former Citizens’ Bank property near the city’s Chapel View section, the Providence Journal reported.
Both a planned walk-through of the site and a public hearing before Cranston’s Plan Commission on January 8 at Cranston High School East are important to the campaign, according to opponents from the Alliance.
In interviews on January 3, critics from the Alliance told The Journal that the proposed Topgolf facility would bring unwanted additional traffic to the area, as well as light and noise pollution.
“We’re not opposed to a development of Topgolf,” said the Alliance’s founder, Pauline DeRosa. “It is just not appropriate for Chapel View, because it will add another layer of traffic.”
The project site, a 22-acre parcel, is adjacent to Cranston’s central public library, the Pawtucket Credit Union, and other nearby properties that also buffer the site from the closest neighborhood with single-family homes, The Journal reported.
The developer of the project, Carpionato Properties, intends to rent the proposed facility to Topgolf, according to The Journal’s report.
Topgolf’s application for the Cranston facility includes a proposed three-story building, a driving range surrounded by poles and netting as high as 190 feet, and a four-story parking garage, according to a draft memo by the city’s principal planner, Doug McLean. The application also calls for offices and retail businesses in a portion of the former Citizens Bank building, The Journal reported.
For a long time, the site was zoned for industry and “heavy business,” The Journal reported. In 2016, the parcel’s zoning was amended to allow for “greater intensity of development on the site,” McLean’s memo said.
The existing zoning for the parcel does not permit “commercial recreational” land use, an allowance that the Topgolf proposal would need to move forward, the city’s planning director, Jason Pezzullo, told The Journal.
The planning commission is in the process of reviewing the master plan application, The Journal reported. It will also make a recommendation to the City Council on the requested zoning amendment.
The city’s planning staff has already studied the impact of the project, The Journal reported. The developer’s traffic assessment says that the volumes of traffic to and from the site at peak travel times on weekdays would be lower than when Citizens Bank was in operation. The area can accommodate increased traffic volume on Saturdays, the assessment added.
The city has asked its own traffic engineer, Stephen Mulcahy, to study the issue, The Journal reported.
Civil engineers at Fuss & O’Neill in Providence are doing a peer review of traffic studies and the director of the state Department of Transportation, Peter Alviti, will provide input as well, Pezzullo told The Journal.
If weather allows it, officials will fly balloons at the site on Saturday, January 12, to help get a sense of the height of the proposed poles and nets, Pezzullo told The Journal.
A spokeswoman for Topgolf and Kelly M. Coates of the Carpionato Group could not be reached for comment, The Journal reported.
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