Providence City Council OKs limits on students in houses

Providence City Council OKs limits on students in houses


PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Landlords cannot rent out single-family houses to more than three college students under a change to zoning regulations that won final approval from the City Council Thursday night by a vote of 10 to 3.

The change aims to address complaints that investors are buying up single-family houses and turning them into small dormitories by renting them to students room by room.

The change, which awaits the signature of Mayor Jorge Elorza, follows a summer of hearings and discussions, some of the them heated.

"It’s a very important ordinance," said Ward 5 Councilwoman Jo-Ann Ryan. "It’s basically an ordinance that protects the quality of life in our neighborhoods."

The change involves two amendments to zoning regulations governing residential-1 and residential-1A zones, which are especially common in the Elmhurst section around Providence College and Rhode Island College.

One amendment defines college students and the other allows no more than three of them to occupy a single-family dwelling in those zones.

Afterward, Ryan said that single-family homes are not designed to house groups of college students, who require more parking than a two-parent family.

Around the same time working families are trying to turn in for the night, college students are just getting started with late night activities that make lots of noise, she said.

Ryan has argued that the zoning ordinance did not intend such use of single-family homes.

Some critics have argued that the zoning proposal is an indirect effort to change noisy, bad behavior through a zoning change when the more appropriate solution is a more direct response to noisy behavior.

The change in the regulations will not affect existing leases of single-family properties, including properties that college students have rented in anticipation of the new school year.

For those properties, the change takes effect when the active leases expire.

The council also overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for the Elorza administration to establish a new academy to train prospective firefighters "as soon as possible."

In the fiscal year that ended on June 30, says the resolution, 55 firefighters retired; without replacements, the Fire Department will be "seriously short-staffed."

The shortage of firefighters has led to around $5 million in call-back and overtime costs, officials have said.

The firefighter contract requires 94 firefighters to be on duty.

Right now, said Council President Luis A. Aponte, the department has about 365 firefighters. This is enough to put about 100 firefighters on each shift and meet the minimum staffing requirement, with about 6 firefighters to spare and without paying overtime, he said.

But the city is at risk of paying greater amounts of overtime to cover for sick firefighters, especially if more firefighters retire. About 50 firefighters have enough time to retire, he asserted.