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CRMC shuts down potential for Quidnessett Country Club to keep its illegal seawall • Rhode Island Current
The drawn-out saga of a North Kingstown country club’s quest to ease development restrictions along its shoreline ended abruptly Tuesday when Rhode Island coastal regulators denied the proposal.
The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council’s 6-0 vote came within minutes, without questions or discussion of Quidnessett Country Club’s request to reclassify the water off its shoreline. Even more importantly for coastal access advocates, the decision appears to block any avenue for the country club to keep a 600-foot-long seawall built without permission along its northeastern property line two years ago.
“It’s been 519 days, but who’s counting?” Jed Thorp, advocacy director for Save the Bay, said in a phone interview Tuesday, referring to when regulators first caught wind of the illegal rock wall overlooking Narragansett Bay. “We’ve been saying all along the request was inappropriate. Hopefully we can get on to enforcement as quickly as possible.”
The country club erected the barrier in January 2023, seeking to protect its flagship golf course from rising sea levels. It wasn’t until state and federal regulators spotted the seawall more than six months later, issuing warnings of fines and other enforcement, that the club sought retroactive permission.
Quidnessett’s April 2024 petition asked the CRMC to reclassify a 1,400-foot-long section of the waters along its shoreline from the existing Type 1 “conservation area” to a less stringent Type 2 “low intensity use.” Under the Type 1 designation, any permanent structures like a seawall are strictly prohibited. A change to a Type 2 designation could — but doesn’t have to — allow for permanent structures like a seawall.
The move drew sharp criticism from Save the Bay and other coastal advocates whose objections were met with equally impassioned support by country club owners, members, and employees. Country club owners through a team of hired attorneys and experts implored the CRMC to consider the redesignation as a correction to a 50-year-old mistake, arguing that the area should have been under less stringent development restrictions all along.
Unpersuaded by this line of reasoning, a subcommittee of the full council voted 3-0 in December to recommend denial of Quidnessett’s petition. The full council’s vote Tuesday affirmed the position of the subcommittee and the agency’s staff report.
The council denied a request from Robin Main, an attorney representing Quidnessett, to speak before the vote Tuesday based on advice from CRMC attorney Anthony DeSisto, who cited the four prior, public subcommittee meetings as ample opportunity.
Main said in an email Tuesday night that she could not comment on the council’s decision. Janice Matthews, vice president of The Jan Companies, which owns the country club, also did not return a call for comment Tuesday night.
While state and federal regulators have issued a series of escalating warnings and threats of fines against the club for the existing stone wall, the club has not yet been forced to tear down the structure.
Thorp hoped that with the application denied, the CRMC would double down on enforcement, including forcing the country club to finally remove the seawall.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha in a statement Tuesday night pointed to the ongoing saga as further evidence of the need to reform the politically appointed council.
“The fact that the Council even considered this request, a retroactive plea for relief from the consequences of their blatantly illegal action, tells you everything you need to know about the state of environmental oversight in Rhode Island,” Neronha said.
His office submitted legislation to state lawmakers on Monday seeking to abolish the council and reshape the agency as an administrative department.
“Because while the Quidnessett decision ultimately came down in our favor, it’s only a matter of time before the next Quidnessett,” Neronha said. “We must embrace real and lasting reform before it’s too late. And the solution is a dedicated Department with no agenda beyond acting in the best interest of Rhode Islanders and the environment.”
Similar bills introduced in the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions, including with Neronha’s backing, have failed to advance out of committee in either chamber.
Updated to include a response from Robin Main, attorney for Quidnessett Country Club.
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New East Bay Bike Path bridges are open and ready for bikes
What’s it like to ride over the new East Bay Bike Path bridges? We sent a reporter to try them out.
I’ve long thought bike paths are among Rhode Island’s premier attractions, up there with the beaches, the mansions and the bay.
We like to knock government, but credit where it’s due, the state has done an amazing job building out an incredible pedaling network.
It’s clearly a priority.
At least I thought it was.
But they’ve just dropped the ball on what should have been a beautiful new stretch.
The plan was to finish a mile-long connector from the East Providence end of the Henderson Bridge all the way to the East Bay Bike Path.
There was even $25 million set aside to get it done.
Except WPRI recently reported that it’s now been canceled.
The main fault lies with the Trump administration, which is no friend of bike paths, and moved to kill that $25 million.
But it gets complicated, as government funding always does.
To try to rescue that money, the state DOT reportedly worked with the administration to refunnel it into a road project. Specifically, the $25 million will now be spent helping upgrade the mile-long highway between the Henderson Bridge and North Broadway in East Providence, turning it into a more pleasant boulevard.
That totally sounds worthy.
But it’s insane to throw away the bike path plan.
Especially for a particular reason in this case.
They’d already put a ton of money into starting it.
When state planners designed the new Henderson Bridge between the East Side and East Providence, they included a bike path.
It’s a beauty – well protected from traffic by a barrier, a great asset for safely riding over the Seekonk River.
The plan was to continue it another mile or so along East Providence’s Waterfront Drive, ultimately connecting with the East Bay Bike Path, which runs all the way to Bristol. Which, by the way, is one of the nicest bike paths you’ll find anywhere.
But alas, that connector plan has been canceled.
So the expensive stretch over the Henderson Bridge to East Providence is now a bike path to nowhere. Once the bridge ends, the path on it continues a few hundred yards or so and then, just … ends.
Too bad.
We were so close.
Most of the stories on the issue have been about the complex negotiation to rescue the $25 million by rerouting it to that nearby highway-to-boulevard project. But I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of that bureaucratic process here because it loses sight of the heart of this story.
Which is that an amazing new addition to one of the nation’s best state bike path systems has just been scrapped.
You can knock the Rhode Island government for blowing a lot of things.
The PawSox.
The Washington Bridge.
But they’ve done great with bike paths.
And especially, linking many of them together.
Example: not too many years ago, Providence bikers had to risk dicey traffic on the East Side to get to the more pleasant paths in India Point Park and on the 195 bridge to the East Bay Path.
But the state fixed that by adding an amazing connector that starts behind the Salvation Army building and beautifully winds along the water of the Seekonk River for a mile or so.
That makes a huge difference – and no doubt has avoided some bike-car accidents.
We were close to a comparable stretch on the other side of the river – that’s what the $25 million would have done.
But it’s now apparently dead.
Online commenters aren’t happy about it.
On a Reddit string, “Toadscoper” accused the state of being “complicit” with the feds in rerouting the money from bikes to cars.
And there was this fascinating post from FineLobster 5322, who apparently is a disappointed planner who worked on the project: “Mind you money has already been spent on phase one so rejecting it at this point is wasting money and also against the public interest … but what do I know? I only worked on the project as an engineer … I didn’t get into this to build more highways. I do it … to give back to communities and give them more access to their environment.”
Wow. One can imagine the state planning team is devastated. That’s not a small consideration. Good people go into government to make life better in Rhode Island, and it’s a bad play to take the spirit out of the job by first assigning a great human-scale project and then, after a ton of work, trashing it.
A poster named Homosapiens simply said, “We just accept this?”
Hopefully not.
The first stretch of the path over the Henderson Bridge is done, money already sunk.
What a shame to leave that as a path to nowhere.
It doesn’t have to happen.
Between Governor McKee and our Washington delegation, there’s got to be a way to get this done.
There’s got to be.
mpatinki@providencejournal.com
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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Watch 12 News Now on WPRI.com or with the free WPRI 12+ TV app.
A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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