COVENTRY – Nearly a decade after residents of a Hopkins Hill neighborhood complained about the effects of living next to a truck-repair business, neighbors say the town has still done nothing to help improve their quality of life.
This, despite the finalization of legal action 2½ years ago that was supposed to offer some relief.
The neighbors’ plight was detailed in a Hummel Report investigation , published in the Providence Sunday Journal during the summer of 2018. Since that time, a legal case has worked its way through Superior Court and the state’s Supreme Court.
At the same time, the Town of Coventry has cycled through multiple town managers, building officials and town solicitors, leaving few at Town Hall with institutional memory of what has happened over the years.
And it’s left homeowners on Helen Avenue exasperated, as they say the town has not enforced a court ruling against Ferrara Mechanical Services and its owner, Daniel Ferrara, that at the very least would have restored a thick buffer of trees and bushes he cut down in 2016. The buffer had largely hidden the trucking operation at 225 Hopkins Hill Road.