Public hearing held on proposed development at Metacomet Golf Club
EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) – A public hearing is set for Tuesday night where residents are planning to voice their concerns over proposed plans to turn the Metacomet Golf Club into a mixed-use development.
The country club dates back to 1901 and sits on over 100 acres of land along Veterans Memorial Parkway in East Providence. But now it’s future is uncertain as a potential new owner has submitted an application to rezone the land, with plans to turn part of it into a space for residential and commercial use.
“We’re not opposed to all development but we’re especially opposed to this development because it just completely will destroy the quality of life that we have in East Providence as we know it. And once that open space is gone, it’s not coming back,” said Candy Seel.
Seel is a part of the group “Keep Metacomet Green” that started as just a few residents and over recent weeks has grown to a group of 2,200 people. They hope the city council will listen to them.
“We want them to slow down, say no we’re not going to do this, and hopefully some better plan will come along,” said Seel.
Lynn Miller is also a part of the group and created a petition that garnered more than 3,000 signatures.
“We can’t allow rezoning. Once the rezoning happens, no one has any say and they can do whatever they want,” said Miller. “There’s a grocery store, a medical office building, there’s apartments, four and five-story apartments, there’s assisted living…it’s a cement city.”
Marshall Properties said in a statement Tuesday that they’re listening to the community’s concerns, and have made “sweeping changes to their proposal.” The developer said they will preserve over 50% of the 138-acre parcel as open space, adding that it will generate millions of dollars in tax revenue.
“We want the East Providence community and area residents to know we are listening and responding to their concerns, and will continue to do so at each step of this robust process,” said Lianne Marshall, principal at Marshall Properties. “We know many residents would like to see things remain as they are, we also want these neighbors to know that simply isn’t possible as golf operations will cease at the end of this season. There is a real opportunity here to create a development that integrates with the existing community while creating significant open-space that is truly available for the public to use and enjoy.”
“They tell us that there will be 51 acres altogether of that public access but 21 acres are underwater,” said Seel. “Just trust us they say, you know, we’ll work on it together, just trust us, just give us the rezoning. But we can’t do that. We can’t do that. We can’t trust that they are going to do something that will be in our benefit.”
The public hearing Tuesday at Martin Middle School reached capacity quickly and attendees were directed to overflow areas.
The hearing will be continued on August 26 at 6 p.m. on Zoom due to technical difficulties that prevented people watching via Zoom from speaking at Tuesday’s hearing.
The link to watch can be found here.
© WLNE-TV 2020
