Agenda - Planning Commission - 09/08/2011

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Zoning Bulletin July 10, 2011 I Volume 5 1 No. 13 24-53(c)), certain zoning amendments were "specific," requiring individual written notice to property owners, or were general, re- quiring only public notice. The determination of that issue dictat- ed whether a town was required to provide only public notice of a hearing on amendments, or whether individual written notice to all owners of real property within 200 feet was necessary. The Background/Facts: In 1999, the Town of North Providence (the "Town") adopted a zoning ordinance, Ordinance 99-127Z (the "Ordinance"), to conform to the Town's comprehensive plan. The zoning amendments effectuated by the Ordinance (the "1999 Amend- ments") "eliminated one commercial zoning district and created seven new zoning districts; set new dimensional regulations for all of the new zoning districts; deleted the existing table of use codes and sub- stituted a new table in its stead; changed zoning maps to reflect the locations of the new zoning districts; and ultimately placed about 50 percent of the land area of the [T]own into a different zoning district." Among the many properties affected by the 1999 Amendments was property (the "Property") owned by Capital City Community Centers, Inc. ("Capital City"). The Property was originally zoned as residential single family, but it was rezoned to open space by these amendments. Eventually, Generation Realty, LLC ("Generation Realty") en- tered into an agreement to purchase the Property from Capital City. In April 2007, Capital City and Generation Realty (collectively, the "Owners") filed an application to amend the town zoning map and zoning ordinance to change the Property's designation from open space to residential general or multihousehold. In the midst of this process, the Owners determined that the Town "never followed necessary and property established procedures" regarding notice when adopting Ordinance 99-127Z. The Town's planning board (the "Board") rejected the Owners' contentions and voted to deny their request for a zoning amendment. The Owners then filed an action in superior court. Among other things, they asked the court to "declare [the Town's] actions in at- tempting to rezone [the Property] null and void." The Owners filed a motion for summary judgment. They asserted that no genuine issue of material fact existed and asked the court to declare that the Property was zoned residential single family and not open space. In support of the motion, the Owners argued that "rezoning the [P]roperty from residential single-family to open space constituted 'a specific change in a zoning district map' because `[f]ewer than two dozen individual properties were purportedly removed from various zoning districts and redesignated as open space lots." They contended that because © 2011 Thomson Reuters 5