Neighbors near the vacant Aldrich Junior High School get several more months before any rezoning vote, and the city will test the market by bidding the property as is. A 16-unit apartment building on Post Road cleared first passage and still needs a second vote and planning board approval. Two bid awards were held to October 5th over missing warranty and pricing details.
The Warwick City Council voted Monday to hold a proposed zoning change for the closed Aldrich Junior High School property until its first meeting in February, after more than an hour of testimony from neighbors who urged the city to keep the building or turn the land into a park. The council also approved a fire pumper award over one member’s objection and advanced a 16-unit apartment proposal on Post Road. This account is drawn from the Warwick City Council’s published meeting recording.
Aldrich School: residents push back, council hits pause
The item, PCO-23-26, would place a planned district residential overlay on the school parcel, which the city recently split off from the adjacent fire station, field and tennis courts through a minor subdivision. Tom Kravitz, the city plan director, said the subdivision protects the field and courts under a land and water conservation restriction from the late 1970s, and that a bid for the school parcel would be limited to residential use only. He said the overlay’s A7 base zone allows 12 units per acre, which he estimated at roughly 40 to 50 units, and that he obtained an estimate of about $1.8 million to demolish the building including environmental remediation.
Every resident who spoke did so against the proposal. Speakers from Palm Boulevard and nearby streets described traffic backing up on Post Road, cars speeding through narrow residential streets, and doubts that a one-time sale would benefit the neighborhood. One resident asked why the site could not become a park or athletic fields. Another, who said they have lived near the school since 1976, said other Rhode Island communities have built playgrounds and parks while this neighborhood has lost both an elementary school and a junior high. Two speakers warned that demolition would displace rats, which they said happened after a former elementary school nearby was torn down…