From wooded to 'war zone': Neighbors say lot 'defaced' following opposition to zoning change

By DANIEL KITTREDGE
Posted 10/2/19

By DANIEL KITTREDGE Check out Google's Street View for the cul-de-sac at the end of Sage Drive in the city's Alpine Estates neighborhood, and the image is what one might expect - a peaceful, wooded area surrounded on both sides by homes, with portions of

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From wooded to 'war zone': Neighbors say lot 'defaced' following opposition to zoning change

Posted

Check out Google’s Street View for the cul-de-sac at the end of Sage Drive in the city’s Alpine Estates neighborhood, and the image is what one might expect – a peaceful, wooded area surrounded on both sides by homes, with portions of Orchard Farms Elementary School visible a few hundred feet away.

Since mid-July, however, residents of the street have encountered a far different scene each day.

Many of the trees on the property have been removed, with stumps and sawdust now lining the ground. A chain-link fence, meanwhile, sits along the roadway.

“It looks like a war zone,” Janice Cataldo said.

The drastic change is not, at this point, evidence of new construction at the site.

Instead, neighbors say, it was a punitive move by the property’s owner after they voiced opposition to a zoning change for the property that would have allowed the construction of eight homes rather than the four that could currently be built as part of an extension of Sage Drive.

“We all showed up, a lot of neighbors showed up, and he didn’t win the zoning change … It wasn’t against him. It was against the change,” Cataldo said.

City property records list the owner of the roughly 9.6-acre site as John Casale III, who was the applicant for the zoning change. The property is valued at $260,700.

Neighbors say they have dealt and met with John Casale’s brother, Thomas Casale, who property records show was previously an owner of the site.

In May, the city’s Planning Commission voted 6-3 to recommend the zoning change with the condition that the number single-family homes at the property be limited to eight. Specifically, the zoning change would have altered the site’s classification from A-80 residential to A-20 residential – lowering the minimum lot size requirement from two acres to a half-acre.

Later that same month, the proposal went before the City Council’s Ordinance Committee for consideration. However, attorney K. Joseph Shekarchi, who represented the applicant, withdrew the proposal before any discussion or vote occurred. Several Sage Drive residents and members of the Alpine Estates community addressed the committee and voiced opposition to the zone change prior to its withdrawal from consideration.

Reached by phone, Shekarchi said Thomas Casale was willing to speak about the matter and could be reached at his Johnston auto body business. At press time, however, a message left for Thomas Casale at the business not been returned.

Sage Drive residents say Thomas Casale called for a couple of meetings with neighbors at the cul-de-sac. Those gatherings, they said, resulted in attempts to intimidate them with promises to bring various developments or facilities technically allowed under the A-80 zoning – a church or mosque, marijuana cultivation or solar panels – to the property if the change to A-20 zoning were not approved.

Cataldo and other neighbors say they understood those pledges were largely impractical. Due to the nature of those meetings, they stopped attending when other requests to gather were made.

Cataldo maintains that the property’s owner “purposefully defaced the area to be spiteful” following the May meeting of the Ordinance Committee.

She also said the opposition of herself and others to the zoning change stems from concerns about traffic and overcrowding in the neighborhood, given that Alpine Estates currently has a single egress onto Scituate Avenue.

Were the zoning change to be granted for the Sage Drive site, she added, there are fears that owners of other undeveloped properties in the area may follow suit.

“We only have one exit, and there’s almost 500 homes in here with one exit. What if there’s a gas leak? … To me, it’s the one point of egress [issue],” she said.

Vincent McCrystal, another neighbor of the site and longtime resident of Alpine Estates, said while the city’s Comprehensive Plan supports the property in question being rezoned as A-20 – a point cited in planning’s approval of the zone change – other concerns must take precedence. For that reason, he opposed the zoning change.

“To me, the Comprehensive Plan should never be used to change zoning in a residential neighborhood,” he said. “It should be used for big things.”

Residents say since the tree removal and fencing installation, they have been in touch with city officials, including members of the Planning Department, Ward 4 Councilman Ed Brady and Council President Michael Farina.

Farina said after being contacted about the issue, he reached out to the city’s administration and the state Department of Environmental Management to see whether any violations had occurred of if neighbors had any recourse.

“At first blush, the answer is no,” he said.

Farina called the removal of trees and installation of fencing at the site “upsetting.”

“It’s really, really awful just to do that out of spite … It makes no sense,” he said.

He acknowledged that he, too, is opposed to changing the zoning from A-80 to A-20 – “It fundamentally changes the character of western Cranston” – but said the property’s owner had other options, such as working with neighbors and city officials and seeking zoning variances.

“That’s the kind of partnership that we like to see in Cranston … have a conversation about what makes sense for everybody,” he said.

Comments

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  • KimLorene

    War zone? hmmmm.....that is an odd description.

    Wednesday, October 2, 2019 Report this

  • Wuggly

    Well some of us didn't want the zoning changed from agriculture and open space to residential either, but there you live.

    That said the City needs to stop with the variances and zoning changes. The roads are not built for the traffic that is on them now. The City keeps making lots smaller and smaller claiming it increases the tax base. It does but those houses cost the City in services i.e. education, fire, police, trash collection, infrastructure and maintenance of roadways.

    The City had a rat problem its not going to get better cramming more houses and people together.

    Friday, October 4, 2019 Report this

  • Wuggly

    Oh and as far as the guy cutting trees on his property, its his property.

    Friday, October 4, 2019 Report this

  • KimLorene

    I agree, his property...he can cut trees if he wants to cut trees.

    Monday, October 7, 2019 Report this