Providence Ordinance No. 465: An Ordinance Adopting the City of Providence’s Official Comprehensive Plan

On November 22, 2024, the Providence City Council approved Ordinance No. 465 to adopt the Providence Comprehensive Plan. The plan is mandated by the Rhode Island Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Act (R.I. Gen. Laws § 45-22.2), which requires municipalities to update or readopt their comprehensive plan at least every 10 years. The plan outlines the city’s priorities and goals for the next decade, including adapting to climate impacts, such as flooding, increasing temperatures, and natural disasters. The Comprehensive Plan includes a robust section on Sustainability, Resilience, and the Environment (SRE), as they aim to improve community and environmental resilience, protect at-risk habitats and development areas, and improve standards for the built environment.

Developing the goals and strategies for the Comprehensive Plan took over two years, as the city council looked for feedback from residents through workshops, on-the-street engagement, and online activities before drafting and reviewing the plan. The plan also looks to follow the emission goals set by the 2021 Rhode Island Act on Climate (R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-6.2), which mandates adaptation strategies for vulnerable habitats and ecosystems. Some of the focus areas outlined in the Providence Comprehensive Plan include flood management, heat mitigation, and natural disasters:

  • SRE Objective 1: Climate Protection, Stormwater, and Flooding

This objective aims to reduce impervious surfaces, coordinate efforts for flood mitigation, restore floodplains, and prioritize projects with co-benefits in areas most impacted by flooding.

  • SRE Objective 2: Climate Protection, Air Quality, and Heat Mitigation

This objective looks to support air quality monitoring programs, expand green spaces, focusing on native vegetation and increasing tree canopy cover, and placing reflective surfaces on large roofs to decrease the heat island effect.

  • Built Environment (BE) Objective 8: The Built Environment and Natural Disasters

This objective plans to improve stormwater management infrastructure to decrease vulnerability and identify high-risk areas to enhance regulations for new buildings and remove existing buildings if necessary. 

The Providence Comprehensive Plan acknowledges that frontline communities within the city bear a disproportionate share of the burden of climate change. The plan explains that “frontline communities must be engaged and centered in the solutions to these challenges” to create just solutions. This is shown explicitly through Objective SRE8: Frontline Neighborhoods and Environmental Justice, through the plans to invest in clean-energy job training for frontline community residents, ensure transparency and collaboration between the city council and residents, and create “green justice areas” and allocate additional resources to them. Other strategies to promote environmental justice are highlighted under other objectives throughout the entire plan. The Comprehensive Plan overall looks to reduce pollution, harm from natural disasters, and increase greenery in frontline neighborhoods. 

This plan will be updated next in 2034, as mandated by the Rhode Island Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Act. 

 

Publication Date: November 22, 2024

Sectors:

Resource Category:

Resource Types:

  • Laws

States Affected:

Impacts:

Go To Resource