Mann: Sex center controversy shows need to change approach

PAWTUCKET - As a controversy over whether to allow a sexual health center on Main Street heats up, at least one community leader is calling on city officials to reconsider their approach toward business owners seeking to locate here.

Mann's comments come even as The Valley Breeze learned this week that officials are not only prohibiting certain businesses like a sexual health center in the downtown area, but are now investigating whether other businesses in the slowly growing area are operating outside the bounds of a newly-approved zoning code.

Thomas Mann, executive director of the Pawtucket Foundation, told The Breeze that for serious redevelopment to take hold downtown, the city's newly revised zoning code should be overhauled to move away from a tight focus on restricting uses for certain buildings, like prohibiting a sexual health center at the Grant Building. Instead, said Mann, officials should turn their focus to molding the "physical forms" of buildings to their liking.

The ongoing fight over whether to allow sexuality instructor Megan Andelloux to open her Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health in the Grant Building, along with similar questions recently over whether to allow a yoga studio in the McDevitt Building up the street, show apparent inconsistencies in the city's zoning code, according to Mann, who said "we're a little behind right now" on zoning enforcement for the 21st century.

Mann said he has questions about why Andelloux was denied her facility because of its "educational" nature, while someone could make the case that the Flying Shuttles Studio right next door is also an educational facility but is allowed to remain open.

In answering Mann's questions Monday, Pawtucket Zoning Director Ronald Travers said that all the controversy over Andelloux' business has brought to his attention questions about whether Flying Shuttles Studio, which has been deemed educational in nature by some, has the proper zoning certificates to be operating in the mixed residential/commercial Grant Building. Travers said he is also looking into the Blackstone Chess Center, which operates in the basement of the Grant Building.

"As far as I can tell, there are no zoning certificates in place," he said.

The current table of uses, said Mann, is "an obstacle" to those seeking to assist in the area's rebirth, and a "more progressive" approach should be phased in. The 13-page table of uses found in Pawtucket's zoning code spans 15 different zone designations and regulates everything from boat and ship building to storage of hazardous substances, but it focuses little on the physical attributes of businesses, according to Mann.

Travers told The Breeze that he doesn't expect the City Council to be amenable to changing the zoning code again after approving a revised code on Aug. 20. That use-based code is the most up-to-date according to North American Industry Classification System.

"I don't believe the City Council would even consider it," said Travers. "We got together with the Planning Department and adopted what we felt were the latest definitions."

Mann said his opinion that the city's zoning approach needs a makeover takes on added importance because members of a task force commissioned by Mayor James Doyle and headed up by Daniel Sullivan, president of Collette Vacations and a co-chairman of the Pawtucket Foundation, is currently assessing the feasibility of a major proposed transit-oriented development across from City Hall and Slater Mill on Roosevelt Avenue.

Sullivan and the task force are working to come up with "a legal framework to make sure we get the outcome that we want to get" in the area, according to Mann; in other words, an overlay zone with the right density for profitability.

The "catalytic" transit-oriented development, say city officials, could add more than $500,000 in annual tax revenue if it becomes a reality, but needs zoning changes to become feasible.

Pawtucket's Director of Planning and Redevelopment Michael Cassidy is currently in the process of hiring a company to complete a preliminary market analysis to determine what types of businesses would work for a profitable Roosevelt Avenue development, which is tentatively planned to include levels of parking, business space and recreation space.

Current restrictions stipulated for riverfront district zoning don't grant the Roosevelt Avenue project the required story height and density necessary to create the type of revenue needed, said Mann.

The current riverfront zoning designation of the Roosevelt Avenue site "prohibits the density that is necessary to repair the urban fabric of our city and make a transit-oriented development remotely feasible," said Mann at a recent task force meeting.

Committee members would then agree to explore an overlay district concept that utilizes "form-based guidelines" to lay out the necessary density, "urban form" and infrastructure requirements for the project.

"We're looking at a designation for that whole city block, specific to that project," Mann told The Breeze.

An overlay zoning district, as laid out in Pawtucket's zoning code, are "districts that are superimposed on existing zoning districts or part of a district ..." Such a change would require several layers of approval, including a go-ahead from the Pawtucket City Council.

Mann said that the Form-Based Codes Institute has listed eight benefits to "Form-Based Codes," or FBCs.

* FBCs are prescriptive in detailing what officials want, rather than being proscriptive in detailing what they don't want, achieving a more predictable physical result.

* FBCs encourage public participation because they allow citizens to see what will happen where, leading to a higher comfort level about greater density, for example.

* FBCs regulate development at the scale of an individual building or lot, encouraging independent development by multiple property owners. This obviates the need for large land assemblies and the mega-projects that are frequently proposed for such parcels.

* End results for FBCs often reflect a diversity of architecture, materials, uses, and ownership that can only come from the actions of many independent players operating within a communally agreed-upon vision and legal framework.

* FBCs work well in established communities because they effectively define and codify a neighborhood's existing "DNA."

* FBCs are easier for non-professionals to use than conventional zoning documents because they are much shorter, more concise, and organized for visual access and readability.

* FBCs remove the need for design guidelines, which are difficult to apply consistently, offer too much room for subjective interpretation, and can be difficult to enforce.

* FBCs may prove to be more enforceable than design guidelines.