ENVIRONMENT

Metacomet developer’s promise to preserve green space draws skepticism from East Providence neighbors

Alex Kuffner
akuffner@providencejournal.com
Golfers compete in the Brown Bear Spring Invitational at Metacomet Country Club in 2015.

EAST PROVIDENCE -- The prospective owner of the Metacomet Golf Club describes its plan to redevelop the 118-year-old golf course overlooking the Providence River as a generational opportunity for the city.

“This is going to be a centerpiece of what East Providence can do and will do for our future,” said state Sen. William J. Conley, the lawyer representing Marshall Properties, which signed a contract for the property last winter.

But while Conley and others working with Pawtucket-based Marshall Properties argued at a City Council hearing Tuesday night that the project would benefit the city, neighboring homeowners and other residents of East Providence weren’t convinced. They raised a host of concerns about the proposal that would transform the 138-acre property off Veterans Memorial Parkway into a mixture of retail shops, office space and residential buildings.

Some questioned how a project that could create thousands of jobs would impact traffic congestion or would stress stormwater infrastructure. Many objected to a loss of green space and wildlife habitat in a part of the city that has already seen significant development in recent years with projects such as the nearby Kettle Point mixed-use project.

“Once this green space is gone, it’s gone forever,” said Candace Seel, of Keep Metacomet Green, a group that formed in opposition to the project. “This will be your legacy. Please do the right thing.”

Other speakers urged the City Council to, at the very least, slow down and carefully consider the proposal’s impacts before deciding whether to grant the developers’ application for a zoning change.

“The zoning does not seem to have enough detail for us to make a very informed decision,” said Kim Francis, who lives on Veterans Memorial Parkway.

The council did not make a decision on the application, to rezone the property from open space to commercial and residential, and, said council President Robert Britto at the outset of the meeting, never intended to do so Tuesday night. Another meeting, to be held online only, is set for Aug. 26. A ruling on the request, which also includes moving review of the project to the city’s Waterfront Commission, will come at a later date.

The redevelopment proposal comes after a group that includes professional golfer Brad Faxon bought the 118-year-old golf course and clubhouse from the club’s membership in 2019. They decided to sell after less than a year in the midst of financial losses that were higher than expected. An agreement with Marshall Properties was announced in February.

But concerns about the project were raised almost immediately. Chief among them is arguably the impact on the surrounding community of losing what many describe as vital green space.

The company had initially proposed preserving about 51 acres of the land as open space, including 21-acre Watchemoket Cove at the southern end of the property. Under a new plan announced just before Tuesday’s meeting, 71 acres would remain untouched, including the cove and its environs and portions near adjacent neighborhoods that would form a natural buffer that would range in width from 75 feet to 375 feet.

In addition, only residential development -- not commercial -- would take place along Fort and Fisher streets, in a bid to fit in with the surrounding area, Marshall Properties said. The company said it will also commit to carrying out traffic, stormwater and wildlife studies as a condition of the zoning change.

“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,” Lianne Marshall, principal at Marshall Properties, said in a statement. “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.”

Marshall Properties has held two meetings with neighbors to hear their concerns. So far, nearly 4,000 people have signed an online petition against redeveloping the golf course.

In written comments submitted to the City Council, Curt Spalding, former regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a member of Metacomet Golf Club, argued for preserving the property as open space because it is a place where ecologically valuable salt marshes can migrate inland as sea levels rise and because green space there will help relieve heat island effects and pollution as temperatures continue to rise.

“Viewed through an understanding of how climate change will affect Narragansett Bay and the residents of East Providence, the rezoning of Metacomet to commercial or residential is an entirely wrongheaded decision. Instead, the City should be encouraging the current owners to build on Metacomet’s recent surge in business as a public golf course and then plan for how the property can be conserved for green space in the long-term,” wrote Spalding, who is now a professor at Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society.

At the three-and-a-half-hour meeting, the Marshall Properties team described their plan as a way of boosting city finances with an estimated $8 million to $10 million in annual tax revenues at a time when East Providence has committed to building a new, state-of-the-art high school.

They also said it would open to the public what for years was a private club.

“We all recognize that that open space that everybody is so keenly aware of has been closed space to all of us,” said Conley, a Democrat who represents East Providence in the Senate. “It’s time to change that.”

akuffner@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7457

On Twitter:@KuffnerAlex

Marshall Properties announced that it will set aside half the 138-acre Metacomet County Club property as open space.