Narragansett Climate Resilience Workshop Set for Sept. 30
Narragansett holds its first public workshop September 30 on a roughly 1.5-year review of its land-use rules for flooding, erosion, stormwater and heat. No draft ordinance language has been released.
Narragansett will hold the first public workshop in a review of its natural hazards and climate resilience regulations on September 30, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Assembly Room at Town Hall, 25 Fifth Avenue. The town posted the announcement on September 17, along with a flyer telling residents, “We want to hear from you.”
The workshop arrives before any draft language does. The town’s project page describes an effort to identify opportunities to fold new standards for hazard mitigation, environmental protection and climate resilience into municipal regulations — zoning, land-development regulations and design guidelines among them — over a project the town describes as running roughly 1.5 years. No proposed text, no maps, no setbacks, no required building elevations have been published.
That sequencing is the point, and also the risk. Residents invited to set priorities are being asked to weigh in on a regulatory package whose cost, scope and effect on property owners, builders and pending development approvals cannot yet be measured, because it does not yet exist on paper.
The review is not a purely local undertaking. The Rhode Island Division of Statewide Planning lists Narragansett as a featured project of its resilience technical assistance program, describing a partnership to incorporate updated hazard-mitigation and climate-resilience standards into the town’s regulations. Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank is a named partner, the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council is the identified funding source, and the Horsley Witten Group is assisting under a state contract. The public materials reviewed do not state the contract amount.
The state program’s menu of possible work is broad: reviewing zoning and land-use regulations, revising subdivision rules, strengthening stormwater and floodplain standards, reducing impervious cover, integrating resilience into comprehensive plans and building incentives for resilient development. Narragansett has not said publicly which of those it intends to pursue. The town’s own framing runs toward protecting natural systems, requiring or incentivizing resilient construction and retrofits, and encouraging green infrastructure and “beneficial landscaping.”
Local sponsor
Why the town says it is looking
The groundwork predates the workshop by four years. Narragansett joined the state’s Municipal Resilience Program in summer 2022 and produced a Community Resilience Building summary in October 2022 with Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank and The Nature Conservancy. Participants in that process identified coastal flooding, hurricanes and tropical storms, nor’easters and blizzards, drought, heat waves and cold snaps as the hazards of concern.
The same report recorded concerns about routine flooding in low-lying areas, causeway closures, stormwater runoff, coastal flooding of roads and infrastructure, vulnerable wastewater pumping stations, and erosion of bluffs, beaches and dunes. It is a record of a community workshop’s findings, not a new scientific risk assessment.
Narragansett’s Hazard Mitigation Plan followed. The town says the Town Council approved it in April 2024, that it was adopted by resolution in September 2024, and that FEMA approved it the same month. The town lists that plan as part of the foundation for the current ordinance review.
What happens after the workshop
A workshop is not a hearing, and the distinction carries legal weight. Should the review eventually produce a zoning ordinance amendment, Rhode Island law requires referral to the Planning Board for review and recommendation, findings on consistency with the Comprehensive Plan, and a public hearing before the Town Council with statutory notice before adoption. Nothing in the town’s announcement identifies September 30 as that hearing.
The event’s own status carries a small wrinkle. The Planning Board’s amended agenda for its September 15 meeting, posted September 10 and reposted September 11, listed September 30 as a “Potential Special Planning Board Meeting” for the resilience public meeting; the town’s flyer presents it as a scheduled first public workshop.
Several pieces of the project’s architecture remain off the public record. The town has not published the membership of the steering committee referenced on its project page, a formal adoption schedule, or the identity of the council member named a project partner — a motion to appoint one appeared on the Town Council’s February 2 agenda. No resident, property owner, builder, developer, business group or environmental organization has registered a public position in the town and state records posted so far.
Ryan DiPanni, Narragansett’s environmental planning specialist, is listed as the contact for the workshop at [email protected] and 401-782-0632. For anyone who owns property near the water in Narragansett, the September 30 session is the earliest scheduled chance to shape the priorities before the drafting begins.