September 4, 2015 – RI Future

September 4, 2015September 12, 2015

10 PVD city councilors voted for exclusionary zoning last night

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The Providence City Council voted 10-3 to modify the zoning code to add exclusionary zoning restrictions on student housing on Thursday night. Under the provision, persons defined as “college students” would not be able to live more than three to a house in zones 1 and 1A (map), despite reports in The Projo that many of the homes in question have as many as five bedrooms.

Zoning laws in Providence must be passed by City Council twice, and either have a veto-proof majority or be signed into law by the mayor. The measure, if passed a second time, would be a challenge to housing affordability and transit-oriented design. The upshot is that the 10-3 vote is very fragile. Just one turnaround would allow Mayor Jorge Elorza to veto the zoning change. I am contacting Mayor Elorza’s chief-of-staff Brett Smiley for comment, but by publication time it is unlikely that I will have word on the mayor’s position. Keep your eyes peeled for updates!

The tempest-in-a-teapot in Ward 5 started around student noise. Councilwoman Jo-Ann Ryan has tried proposing other methods of shunning students, including additional fees on student housing, but decided to settle on this zoning measure, according to reporting done in The Projo.

Changes in density affect transit. Transit viability is affected along an exponential curve, rather than a linear progression, based on density. So small changes in density through exclusionary zoning can have large reverberating effects on transit frequencies, and those changes disproportionately hurt low income people, especially time-poor low income people, like those with multiple jobs or children.

Changes in zoning like this also negatively affect housing affordability, not only for students, but for everyone. You might find yourself saying, “Who cares what happens to college students?” It’s not like someone is being discriminated against on the basis of race, or gender, or sexuality. Being a college student is just a stage in life, and it’s not even a stage in life that everyone goes through.” But the students who are most affected by this type of rule will be disproportionately those students who are riding the razor’s edge of affording school. Upper class students will shrug this off, and perhaps not even notice it, or be annoyed by it for lifestyle reasons.

Students who can find housing will. When students overflow from housing they may have previously been able to occupy, they may outbid others with less money looking for apartments. While sometimes this outbidding process can lead to greater housing development, resolving the imbalance, the zoning ordinance itself stops an increase in zoning density, and actually reduces densities below their existing levels. The price increases here are also not due to people’s increased desire for a neighborhood–which is at least a mixed blessing–but by artificial regulations that will just keep certain people out. The process of using zoning to limit housing is one of the things that has most affected displacement of working class families from homes. It tries to shape our cities into an imagined ideal of single-family homes that never existed except in the imagination of someone like Frank Lloyd Wright. This means that housing will become expensive, but with none of the attendant positives of that process–a kind of “stagflation” of housing policies.

Who are the people who voted for exclusionary zoning?

Councilman Kevin Jackson, Ward 3, Mt. Hope (my councilman)

Mr. Jackson narrowly won his last election against a write-in candidate, Marcus Mitchell, who started a write-in campaign for his seat just before Election Day. The election went to a recount. I have contacted Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Jackson on this issue, but as yet have not heard back, but multiple previous conversations I’ve had with Marcus Mitchell have centered on his involvement with RhodeMap, which opposes exclusionary zoning.

Councilwoman Jo-Ann Ryan, Ward 5, Elmhurst

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Councilwoman Ryan voted for her own bill. She is a new councilor.

Councilman Michael Correia, Ward 6, Manton

Councilman John Iggliozzi, Ward 7, Silver Lake

Councilwoman Carmen Castillo, Ward 9, Elmwood

Council President Luis Aponte, Ward 10, Lower South Providence and Washington Park

The Councilman’s vote for exclusionary zoning shocks me, because he has frequently been a voice for tenant’s rights and an acceptable if not perfect voice for transit-oriented development. This is a misstep for the Council President, and we hope he’ll change his vote.

Councilwoman Mary Kay Harris, Ward 11, Upper South Side

Councilman Bryan Principe, Ward 13, Federal Hill and the West End

I have to report disappointment on this vote by Councilman Principe, as I’ve found him to be a very urbanist-oriented councilman much of the time. I hope that residents in my old neighborhood of the West End will speak out to Councilman Principe, and that he’ll change his vote next week.

Councilman David A. Salvatore, Ward 15, Elmhurst and Wanskuck

Councilwoman Sabina Matos, Ward 16, Olneyville

Many of these councilpersons represent districts that ought to be unified in their opposition to exclusionary zoning for one reason or another.

Councilmen Yurdin, Zurier and Jennings voted against the measure. Councilmen Narducci and Hassett were not present at Thursday night’s meeting. Councilman Zurier’s hands haven’t exactly been clean. In his own district he has worked to make apartments and other types of multifamily housing less easy to develop.

Please contact your city councilor–and indeed, please contact the entire Providence City Council–and let them know that Providence is not supportive of exclusionary zoning policies. And ask Mayor Elorza to veto any vote next Thursday that isn’t over the veto-proof margin of 10.

Update: According to a by Patrick Anderson, Mayor Elorza’s office will support the zoning change, as proposed.

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September 4, 2015September 4, 2015

Procaccianti promotes pain in Providence

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Hotel workers gathered outside Providence City Hall Thursday evening to call attention to a new report, “Providence’s Pain Problem,” that details higher rates of injury at The Procaccianti Group Providence hotels Renaissance and Hilton than at other hotels nationally. According to their report,” the incidence rate for work-related injury and illness was 69% higher at the Hilton and 85% higher at the Renaissance Hotel than the national average rate for hotel workers in 2013.”

In addition, “workers at Procaccianti hotels suffered injuries resulting in days away from work at a rate nearly four times the national average. The incidence rate for work-related injuries and illness that resulted in days away from work was 42% higher at the Procaccianti hotels than the Omni and Biltmore hotels.”

Workers at The Procaccianti Group are worked harder than their counterparts at unionized hotels. At the Hilton workers are expected to clean anywhere from 17 to 23 rooms in one shift. The work-load per shift is 15 at the Omni and 14 at the Biltmore, where employees are protected by their union.

“My life has changed completely due to my injury and I am unable to work or even walk without the use of a cane,” said Susana Ramirez, a housekeeper at the Hilton for 13 years, in a statement, “The Procaccianti Group needs to stop hurting us.”

Also speaking at the rally was Providence City Councilor Carmen Castillo, workers’ compensation lawyer Steven Dennis and RI Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (RICOSH) Executive Director Jim Celenza.

After the main section of the rally, workers continued with a candle-lit vigil and passed out copies of the report to people and politicians entering City Hall before the city council meeting.

September 4, 2015

Fighting for voting rights in RI

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“Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” said Jim Vincent, president of the NAACP Providence, “the majority of Black Americans were unable to vote. That’s what was happening in the Jim Crow south… Civil Rights activists fought, bled and died for these rights, and they are being rolled back every day.”

Vincent was speaking at an ACLU panel discussion held at the Providence Public Library in August entitled, “The Voting Rights Act at 50: The Promise and The Struggle.” Hilary Davis of the ACLU directed the event, and in addition to Vincent, Kate Bowden of the RI Disability Law Center and Lee Ann Byrne of the RI Coalition for the Homeless attended.

The history of voter disenfranchisement was briefly discussed, as was the Voter ID laws that the RI General Assembly passed a few years ago. Many politicians feel that having to show a picture ID at the polls is not an undue burden, but Hilary Davis pointed out that years ago, many thought poll taxes, now seen as exclusionary, were not a big deal. Poll taxes, Jim Vincent added, “were designed to disenfranchise a whole group of people so that they couldn’t participate in our democracy.”

After the Voting Rights Act was passed 50 years ago, the percentage of registered black voters rose from 25 to 62 percent. More than that, the Voting Rights Act “provided the right to assistance in the voting booth. This allowed the illiterate, or the disabled, to vote,” said Kate Bowden.

For 47 years or so the Voting Rights Act was doing great. “Then states began to role back voting rights,” said Davis, adding that the Supreme Court virtually eliminated the VR Act when they struck down key provisions. “Over night… states started to enact laws to limit access… It was within a number of hours of Supreme Court decision that laws were introduced to limit voting rights.

And these laws are racially biased. Before Obama was elected President, seven states had laws restricting voter rights,” said Vincent. The number is around 25 now, and Rhode Island is not exempt.

“Rhode Island rushed to pass a [Voter ID] law,” said Davis, “Unlike most laws this is based on a couple of anecdotal incidents… Stats show their is virtually no evidence of voter fraud. Mail ballots became easier to obtain, the only place where fraud was found…No one thought that a Democratic [Party majority] state would manage to do that.”

Lee Ann Byrne said that for the homeless population though, “obtaining an ID is important to access many services… it comes at a major expense” and “despite the availability of the free IDs, it doesn’t make sense to get one that is good only for voting.”

Furthermore, said Byrne, “Poll worker training is a bit spotty” on the issue of voting without a permanent address. “We have a highly mobile population, our constituents almost never have an ID that matches their address.” And denying someone the right to vote or forcing them to cast a provisional ballot under these conditions, is not the law.

People can become embarrassed or caused distress at the polls if they can’t be certain about their right to vote. “There is a concern about being challenged or turned down when they make the effort,” said Byrne. To date only about 900 voter IDs have been issued by the Secretary of State’s office. Before the introduction of voter ID in Rhode Island, there were “zero prosecutions for in person voter impersonation’” but since the passage of the law, said Davis, otherwise qualified voters have been turned away.

Being forced to get a photo ID in order to vote, said Vincent, “is a form of poll tax.”

Another issue of voting concern to the ACLU is “prison based gerrymandering.” Right now the 4000 inmates at the ACI are counted as living in Cranston, on Howard Ave. These people are unable to vote, meaning that the citizens in this district have more voting power than people in the rest of the state. Their vote counts as more because there are less people voting in their district.

The state Senate passed legislation to correct this problem, which would count those people at the ACI as living at their home address, but it has not moved in the House.

The panel discussed other issues, such as long lines and long waits at the polls in some districts, which may cause people to lose out on their chance to vote if time is scarce, broken voting machines, lack of childcare at polls, mail ballot fraud, the need for early voting and issues regarding the Board of Elections.

The ACLU recommends two things needed immediately for the needed reform of our elections. First, the ACLU needs people to volunteer as poll monitors. Poll monitors would note when voters are turned away, when equipment malfunctions or when other irregularities occur. Secondly, the ACLU would like to see the voter ID law repealed.

To accomplish the second goal the public needs to talk to our legislators. Too many people think showing an ID at the poll is no big deal, but for the homeless, the disabled or the poor, securing an ID can be a terrific burden. Thoroughly discouraged, eligible voters may decide to skip voting all together, and this can’t be good for our putative democracy.