Middletown workshop asks residents to prioritize housing, open space and resilience

Organizers of the Town of Middletown's comprehensive plan update asked residents at a public workshop to prioritize housing, recreation and natural-resource protections as part of a 10-year vision and draft policies.

The workshop, led by members of the comprehensive plan update committee and consultants from Stantec, presented draft vision and goal statements for nine state-required plan elements and invited participants to place dot stickers and leave written comments to indicate their top priorities.

"We're gonna ask you to think about what are the things that are most important to you," said Melissa Welch, chair of the comprehensive plan update committee and a representative of the Middletown Conservation Commission. Welch said the committee and planning staff had already prepared posters summarizing earlier outreach and asked attendees to prioritize rather than mark everything. She added the committee will skip its July and August meetings while consultants refine materials.

"Middletown will preserve its quality of life for all generations as a safe, welcoming, and resilient community," said Phil Schaffing, project manager for Stantec, quoting the draft overall vision statement presented at the meeting. Schaffing described how that vision filters into goals, policies and measurable actions tied to each of the nine plan elements the state requires.

Consultants and committee members said three themes consistently rose in earlier outreach and would factor into the draft plan: recreation and open space, housing, and natural-resource protection. Schaffing and Stantec staff described topic-specific goals shown on posters around the room: protecting freshwater and coastal ecosystems; maintaining and expanding trails, coastal access and recreation facilities; encouraging smart-growth redevelopment and mixed-use development in already built areas; and promoting transportation safety for pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users.

Attendees were shown a draft approach to the future land-use map that assigns most of town to "enhance" or "preserve" categories, with targeted "transform" areas identified primarily along commercial corridors including Upper West Main Street, Lower East Main and the northern stretch of Aquidneck Avenue. The Atlantic Beach District, corporate/business parks and parts of Lower West Main were listed as areas to "strengthen." Schaffing said those categories are intended to focus larger changes where vacancy or aging buildings create opportunity while protecting less-developed portions of town.

The workshop also introduced a new sustainability and resiliency element that was not in the town's previous plan. Consultants said the element will cover coastal and inland flooding, heat events and broader social and economic resiliency that supports community cohesion and public safety.

Organizers explained the public participation exercise: one dot to rate agreement with the overall vision, three colored dots to identify top topics (colors matter only on that poster), and three stickers per topic to pick priority policies. Written sticky notes were offered for additional comments. Schaffing said the online version of the same exercise would be posted on the committee's webpage "probably up there on Monday" and remain open for a couple of weeks.

"What we'll do then with all of this feedback is we're going to summarize this, in a couple more weeks," Schaffing said, adding the committee will combine tonight's results with the online responses and report back. He said the team plans a draft-plan open house this fall and to proceed with the plan adoption process in winter and into early next year.

Consultants and the committee noted that the housing element had previously been worked on under a separate state grant and that the housing-specific goals shown reflect that prior process. The presentation referenced more than 700 individual inputs gathered to date through surveys, workshops and committee meetings.

Participants and staff raised common concerns identified earlier in outreach, including rising housing costs, traffic congestion and safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, preservation of beaches and coastal access (including issues at the Second Beach facility), the role of agriculture in town character, and short-term rentals. Organizers emphasized that some topics, such as regional traffic congestion and public transit, would require coordination with neighboring jurisdictions and regional agencies rather than being solely under local control.

No formal votes or policy decisions were taken at the workshop. Organizers said the next steps are to collect sticker and online feedback, summarize results, post the draft future land-use map in the fall open house and then move into the formal adoption process in winter and early next year.