Council OKs WFD Raises, Restored Duplex Regs

WARWICK, RI —  The Warwick City Council approved a new WFD firefighter contract Monday with a 3 percent raise retroactive to July, a 1.25 percent increase in January, and biennial hikes through 2028.

Firefighters will also continue to pay 2 percent into the city’s Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB) fund to cover future healthcare costs.

The Council also added a duplex lot size table, previously deleted, back into the zoning regulation, and approved funding for a new Buttonwoods Avenue Pipeline, among other bid items.

WFD Contract Approved

The Council approved a new Firefighter contract, including 3 percent salary increases, with mid-year 1.25 percent increases, through January 2028, as follows:

• 7/1/25-3%
• 1/1/26-1.255
• 7/1/26- 3.25%
• 1/1/27-1.25%
• 7/1/27-3.25%
• 1/1/28- 1.25%

The new contract would also allow retirees to purchase family health and dental through the City at the City’s rate at the retiree’s expense, among 36 changes, listed in a schedule of amendments.

Fire union negotiators asked for parity with the Warwick Police Union, said Bruce Kaiser, Economic Development Director and one of the chief negotiators for the city on the fire union. In turn, the City’s position was that the firefighters; 2 percent OPEB contribution should continue. That 2 percent contribution continuing is necessary to keep similar contributions by the other unions in place, Kaiser pointed out. When the police and municipal unions’ contracts, which include OPEB agreements for 2 percent contributions, expire in FY27, he said, the OPEB contributions will end unless all the unions are making those contributions.

“If we don’t get a three-year agreement with the IAFF, not only does the OPEB for fire disappear, but because all the contracts are looking for equivalency, they all disappear. So, we would be in the position of having to renegotiate an OPEB from square one.”

Kaiser said that, according to the fiscal note, the cost of the contract to the city in the first year will be $987,000, $947,000 in the second, and $915,000 in the third. He said the cost to taxpayers would amount to a nickel added to the tax rate. For a median $400,000 home, he said, the added tax would be about $20 per year.

“What we are looking for is a very fair and equitable contract based on what other communities around us have received,” said Warwick Professional Firefighters President Noah Craven.

“The last thing I want to do here this evening, is to cast a vote for a benefit, a promise, a contractual commitment that all of you, all of you firefighters are going to have retiree health insurance as it says in the contract, fully knowing that there is no plan here. There is no plan here. I cannot in good conscience vote to ratify this contract because there is no plan.” Rix asked the administration if there was a plan, to which Kaiser answered that there is an OPEB plan in place, with the unions contributing 2 percent to the OPEB fund, with the long-term goal to increase that to 4 percent.

Rix said that’s only half a plan, that it doesn’t factor in the need for tax increases to support it. Kaiser said the last 5-year plan provided for retired Finance Director Peder Schaefer used the OPEB projection in his forecast. Rix was not convinced. He said couldn’t support the contract when it would likely put the city on track to ask to increase the tax rate cap within three years.

“You deserve it. We can’t afford it. I don’t see how,” Rix said.

Craven noted the pension fund is 85 percent funded, one of the best funded in the state. He said the firefighters began contributing to OPEB two years earlier than required to help the city work toward fixing the city’s long term financial obligations.

The contract passed the Council, with Rix and Councilman Ed Ladouceur voting against.

Duplex Lot Requirements Added Back Into Zoning Regulations

In other news, the Council voted to add a previously deleted table requiring slightly larger lot sizes for duplexes to zoning law. An earlier change removed that table, said Warwick City Planner Tom Kravitz, and the planning department sought to add them back. Also, he said, his department advised removing building permit requirements for fences.

It just doesn’t make sense to have mandatory permit requirements and zoning for fences anymore. Very few communities do it. Permits for fences on historic district properties are still required, he said.

‘It was incredibly, very much directly, as intentional as intentional could possibly be, when I introduced the amendment to set forth the zoning as to two-family houses, sometimes referred to as duplexes. I thought that I had made that very clear in the amendment itself, last time around. I thought that I stated that logic in the argument for that amendment the last time around,” passed unanimously by the council, Rix said. The logic, he said, was that Warwick has a housing crisis

“As long as all the other zoning restrictions, that is, height, setback, lot size, etcetera, etcetera, are all being met, I don’t see anything, say, morally objectionable, or otherwise degradational to the character of the neighborhood when it comes to a two-family house being on a conforming lot that’s traditionally known as a single family sized lot.

Rix argued that single family homes and two family homes can be in the same neighborhood with no harm to the area. “It’s going to increase the housing supply. It adds to the character of the neighborhood. It’s also, especially these days, I understand the

Michelle Komar, a Ward 6 resident, spoke in favor of adding the duplex lot table back into zoning regulations. She said the city doesn’t have a housing shortage so much as a crisis of Rhode Islanders not being able to afford available housing. Roberta Idone, also of Ward 6, on Pinehurst Avenue, agreed. She said there were two duplexes being built on one lot in the area, bringing four families to that lot.

‘So, I’m concerned about that,” Idone said. ‘I moved into the neighborhood because it was a nice, quiet neighborhood and now there’s going to be four families on one lot.”

Kravitz said that people are buying up new homes in Ward 6 and are building duplexes in the lots, and that it is “kind of a shock’ to the neighborhood. He said adding the table back wouldn’t halt duplex construction, but would keep it more in line with the existing neighborhoods, requiring about 50 percent more space for such development.

Answering questions from Councilman Bryan Nappa, Kravitz said that without the table, the planning board was unable to deny duplex permits. But, he repeated, developers are still interested in duplex developments. “It’s not going to stop duplex development,” Kravitz said.

Rix asked if, with the table, the planning board would be able to deny a duplex permit for an under-sized lot. Kravitz said that, so long as the setbacks and other requirements are met, the size of the lot wouldn’t matter.

“If the lot size doesn’t matter, then what are we even doing here, with this?” Rix asked.

“I can deny them but they’ll be appealed, and we’ll lose every time because we have no standards in special use permit,” Kravitz said.

‘But we do have standards,” Rix said, adding that if neighbors have a problem with a development on a postage-sized lot, “They shoud go to the board, and the board already has full authority to reject that under the ordinance as it exists today. Also, Rix said, two developments are not allowed to go up on a single lot. That requires a subdivision, he pointed out.

“No, two duplexes cannot go up on a single lot. There are protections there when it comes to subdividing of lots, too. That also has to go through a process. So I just find this whole presentation, pardon me, for this, but it’s a big old boogeyman,” Rix said, “And that just smacks of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard)-ism and that is the last thing that we need baked into these standards, when we already have so many restrictions,’ Rix said. He referenced his original speech on the subject at the time the table was removed.

“This is America. People have property rights, and I think that Americans should be able to build a duplex on their own land so long as all of those setbacks and a minimum lot size requirements and all of those are being met. Let’s solve this housing crisis. Let’s let people build on their own land as long as it’s meeting all of these other restrictions.”

Responding to Councilman Bill Muto’s request to clarify, Kravitz said adding the table would allow the board to make its special use permit decisions based on standards in the law. “To Councilman Rix’s point, just change it to allowed by right, not special use permit. Then the planning board can just look at dimensional relief in each respective district. It’s the special use permit type of application that’s triggering this.”

Councilman Vinny Gebhart expressed concern that duplexes in his ward may not be built with the proper septic system capacity, since many properties in that area lack sewers. He also said he is partial to a process that applies a higher level of review, leaning in support of Kravitz’s proposal to add the table back.

‘I think this is a good, solid half-measure for today, and if you want to have a longer, more thoughtful dialogue about duplexes and their place, and how they fit and what rules we should wrap around them, I think we should do that,” Gebhart said. But, he said, the absence of the table has exposed issues in the process that need to be resolved.

Rix moved to amend Kravitz’s proposal at remove the table and add duplexes to be built as a right.  Ladouceur seconded it for discussion, but no one else commented. The amendment failed with only Rix voting for it. The proposal itself passed with only Rix voting against.

Bid Package Includes Buttonwoods Pipeline replacement

Prior to the full meeting,  DPW Business Manager Christy Moretti told the Finance Committee that theWater Division was asking to hire Stantec Consulting of Irvine, CA  for the Buttonwoods Avenue Pipeline replacement at Brush Neck Cove for $199,500.

Moretti said the pipeline runs through Brushneck Cove to Oakland Beach.

“If it’s not repaired and water’s only routed in one way, it will affect the pressure, water quality volume and fire protection for areas of Oakland Beach. According to a memo read by Councilman Ed Ladoceur, the pipeline was leaking 7,000 gallons per minute when it was shut down, after four years of the leak growing worse. He asked why it took so long to address the problem.

Moretti noted the Water Division has been led by two different directors during that time, including Terry DePetrillo, who last ran the department. She said she couldn’t speak to either person’s thinking on the leak.

Sullivan Tire Co., Inc. 1199 Jefferson Blvd. Warwick, RI, various new DPW tires for $140,000

Replacement Automotive Parts for Police Vehicles, $110,000, to various suppliers: Action Auto Parts 735 North Main Street Providence, Elliot Auto Supply Co., Inc., 45 Dietsch Blvd North Attleborough, MA, East Coast Terminals, Inc. 267 Allen St. Springfield, MA, O’Reilly Automotive Stores, Inc., 2680 West Shore Rd., Unit D Warwick, RI, and Raps Auto Supply (NAPA) 3666 West Shore Rd. Warwick, RI.

Those three items were top three highest cost among 15 bid items in the bid package that night.