RI rejects bid from homeowners to build house on stilts in Narragansett wetlands

Jim Hummel
| The Hummel Report

The state’s Coastal Resources Management Council this week rejected a controversial proposal from a Narragansett man to build a house on too small a plot of land in a wetland adjacent to the Narrow River.

Barring a stiff legal challenge by Nicholas Veltri, the council’s unanimous decision ends a years-long saga that engulfed dozens of neighbors — and those who worried about the precedent an approval would have set for other projects in environmentally sensitive areas.

“This neighborhood has really come together and stood up to protect the wetland and preserve the river,” said Patricia Federico, who helped lead the fight against Veltri’s proposal.

The opponents told a story about ‘David vs. Goliath,” a grassroots effort against paid experts that neighbors said depicted the opposite of what they saw evolving in their neighborhood.

“I am filled with hope because environmental conservation standards, supported by a concerned community, have allowed a wetland to be preserved without paid testimonials supporting irresponsible development in the watershed,” Federico added.

The decision-making process takes decades

The case’s journey dates back more than two decades and was first detailed in a Hummel Report investigation published in The Providence Sunday Journal in April 2023. The story was accompanied by photos showing the Narrow River flowed into the neighborhood and flooded Veltri’s property. and making part of an adjacent street impassable.

In the last version of construction, Nicholas Veltri asked to build a two-story house on a plot of 8000 square meters, 4 meters above the ground, with a total height of 10 meters. The plans called for 603 square feet on the first floor, a 1,000-square-foot deck, a 551-square-foot second floor and 400 square feet for parking. Veltri needed significant variances at the local and state levels to make it work – but the CRMC is the regulatory body that ultimately had to sign off.

The proposal council heard this week was significantly smaller than a previous owner’s original plan in 2017 and 2020. CRMC staff recommended rejecting both. On Tuesday evening, Tracy Silvia, a senior environmental scientist for the CRMC, reiterated to members what staff had written.

“Although the applicant has attempted to reduce the scope of the project, the two previous applications indicate how difficult the development of the site would be,” Silvia said at the start of the hearing, referring to the reports.

CRMC has received a lot of criticism lately

But the full council has not always followed its staff’s recommendation, leading to legislative scrutiny after several controversial decisions. They include a backroom deal struck by the agency to settle a twenty-year-old case involving a proposed Block Island marina expansion, first reported by The Hummel Report in February 2021. The Rhode Island Supreme Court ultimately rejected the deal – and the expansion.

Then in December 2022, the full council approved an application for two power lines connecting a large wind farm off the coast of Block Island to the mainland power grid – a decision that was not initially made public.

Digging deeper: Background to the proposal

For Veltri, a licensed land surveyor who owns several properties in Narragansett, the official process of building on Wilson Drive began in 2022, when he didn’t even own the property at 0 Wilson Drive yet. He hired an attorney and a group of experts to testify before the Narragansett Planning Board, which unanimously rejected the plan. Despite that rejection, the city’s Zoning Board approved the same proposal a month later on a 4-1 vote. The council rejected concerns about climate change and the Narrow River’s continued rising water levels.

That raised eyebrows among neighbors, who wondered why Veltri had purchased the property — and paid off back taxes — two days before the Zoning Board vote.

Veltri said early in the process he had a purchase and sale agreement with the previous owner, subject to CRMC and zoning approvals. City records show he paid $95,000 for the lot, plus tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes and sewer assessments dating back more than a decade before he got the necessary approvals.

What happened during the meeting?

On Tuesday evening, Veltri’s team, led by attorney John J. Garrahy, reconvened in a conference room in the Department of Administration building in Providence for a hearing that would last three hours. The start of the meeting was delayed for nearly an hour because a member was late and the CRMC needed him for a quorum – an ongoing problem for the council in recent years as there have been resignations that resulted in multiple vacancies.

Armed with a PowerPoint presentation, Garrahy had an environmental engineer, a real estate appraiser and a biologist tell council members why they believed Veltri’s proposal would be compatible with the neighborhood – and the environment.

At the end of the nearly two-hour presentation, Garrahy told the board: “I would say that we have met our burden of meeting … the criteria that are set out in the regulations. When you compare the standards with our expert testimony, I believe that we … qualify for the waivers.”

No one, except Veltri’s paid experts, testified in favor of the project.

Then it was the opponents’ turn. Eight people, mostly neighbors, spent an hour telling the council about the devastating effect they believed Veltri’s project would have.

Federico, who lives near Veltri’s property on Wilson Drive, said she took a measurement from the corner of her property to the high tide mark in the river when she bought her house in 1998. It was 15 meters. Federico recently took another measurement and it was 38 feet.

“That’s 12 feet of land that’s gone in 25 years,” Federico said. “So my concern is for the current homeowners and the risk and the cost of flooding. In its current state (owned by Veltri), it’s acting as a natural buffer for the homeowners around this property.”

Martha Callan, a neighbor whose family has owned land in the area since the 1950s, said, “All that time, the land has been what I would call a swamp. I don’t consider it wetlands. No one ever believed that anyone would try to build anything there. It’s beyond my wildest dreams. I’m afraid that if Mr. Veltri were to build there, the displaced water would have a negative impact on me. Until it’s built, you don’t know.”

Callan also responded to Veltri’s claim earlier in the meeting that he and his wife planned to live in the house, even though he owns a 2,500-square-foot home overlooking Narragansett Bay’s West Passage, which is estimated at something less than $1.5 million.

“I don’t understand why anyone who lives in Bonnet Shores would actually want to move into a mosquito pond and walk up and down those stairs all day. It doesn’t make sense,” Callan said.

Craig Wood was the last to speak. Wood, a professional wetlands scientist and coastal ecologist, serves on the board of directors of the nonprofit Narrow River Preservation Association and the Narrow River Land Trust.

“I spend a huge amount of my personal time trying to be a steward of the Narrow River watershed,” Wood said, choking up. “Should council conclude that this proposal is consistent with your objectives and policies, the future health of the Narrow River Estuary is very bleak indeed.”

CRMC staff speaks out against the project

Before the vote, CRMC Chairman Raymond C. Coia gave Silvia, the council’s staff member, the opportunity to rebut Veltri’s experts.

Silvia responded: “It is the staff’s view that the site is currently best used as it is: as a stormwater area, wildlife habitat, flood control… and also for future passive recreation. The development of this parcel would set a precedent for other important and variant-narrowed parcels that face increasing sea level rise and storm water challenges.”

Councilman Donald Gomez made a motion to deny the application, citing the staff report and testimony from the objectors.

“My personal opinion is that climate change is happening faster in this area than in other areas,” Gomez said. He also rejected a request from Garrahy that Veltri’s parcel would result in a “regulatory taking” if the council did not approve his plan – and would be useless if he could not develop it.

“The applicant purchased the site and he stated that he was (with) full knowledge of the conditions of the site,” Gomez said. “Previous applicants have all been rejected. He bought the site with that knowledge and then spoke of unreasonable hardship. Well, it’s a bit like buyer beware. For me it should simply be rejected on all the material presented tonight. ”

Coia also praised the staff.

“I listen to the public’s reaction. I’m not influenced by it, but I do appreciate it and I do consider it,” Coia said. “But when I give sufficient weight to the evidence, it’s usually expert testimony, and we had both experts from the applicant and experts from our staff. We had some demonstrative evidence in the form of photographs, and on this particular point I’m influenced by the opinion of our staff and the totality of the evidence: the photographs, the history of this lot. I find it compelling.”

The vote was 6-0.

What comes next?

Garrahy said after the meeting that he needed to talk to his client about whether he should file an appeal with the Superior Court.

Ken Ryan, who said he has now attended nearly 20 hours of hearings between local and state assemblies, told The Hummel Report after the vote: “Despite all the odds, including the Narragansett Zoning Board’s near-unanimous approval and hours of ‘expert’ testimony.” , Narrow River won, with the CRMC Board supporting the expert work of the CRMC staff.”

Craig Wood said in an email: “Approval of the extraordinary relief requested by the applicant for buffer zone encroachment and construction delay requirements, as well as coastal resilience guidelines, would have set a horrific precedent for flawed and unsustainable development practices within the Narrow River. and along the entire coastline of Rhode Island.”

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