Council approves rezoning for South County Health employee parking at 11 Kenyon Ave, with conditions

The South Kingstown Town Council on March 10 approved changing the zoning of 11 Kenyon Ave from R‑10 medium‑high‑density residential to Government Institutional to allow South County Health to pursue an off‑site employee parking lot.

The planning board had recommended the council approve the map change conditioned on the hospital first obtaining planning board approval of any institutional master plan amendments and on submission of a traffic analysis, a full landscaping plan and a pedestrian routing/facility plan. Planning director Jamie Rabbit read that recommendation into the record, noting the requirement that the applicant include a traffic plan and a preliminary landscape plan when it seeks the institutional master plan amendment.

Attorney John C. Revens Jr., representing South County Health, told the council the property contains about 39,000 square feet and that the hospital’s proposal would create roughly a 21,000‑square‑foot parking area. Revens said more than half the parcel is already impervious surface and described a modified layout that moved pedestrian access to the Salt Pond Road corner at the neighbors’ request. “The landscaping buffer ... will be a solid landscaping buffer along the entire southerly side of the property,” Revens said, adding that diseased white pines previously on the site have been removed and will be replaced with an evergreen hedge.

Andrew Prescott, general counsel for South County Health, told the council the hospital remains interested in other potential acquisitions but said the Kenyon parcel would help relieve day‑time parking pressure for patients and visitors. He said the hospital estimates the lot would provide about 50–55 employee spaces and that employees using the lot would free spaces on the main campus for patients and visitors.

Neighbors who spoke at the public hearing expressed concern about pedestrian safety and routing, stormwater runoff, and the potential for non‑employee parking. Lynn Harper, who lives on Canyon Avenue next to the site, said the neighborhood pressed the applicant to move pedestrian access to the intersection and to create a continuous planting buffer: “...having it at the intersection, where there is already lighting and other signage ... makes a lot more sense,” Harper said.

Planning director Jamie Rabbit and the planning board’s report made clear that the zoning change alone does not authorize construction. Any parking proposal will require the hospital to amend its institutional master plan and to submit site plans, stormwater design and the traffic and landscape plans that planning recommended. Those materials will be subject to staff review, planning board review and subsequent public process before construction permits could be issued.

The council approved the map amendment on a voice vote; no roll‑call tally was recorded in the meeting transcript. The approval was explicitly conditioned on the planning‑board elements described above.

Why it matters: The rezoning clears a path for the hospital to add off‑site employee parking intended to reduce competition for patient and visitor spots on the main campus. Neighbors secured commitments on pedestrian routing and landscape screening but said they will continue to weigh site‑level design during the institutional master plan and site plan reviews.