- [Jim] This week on "A Lively Experiment," voters last month passed a $120 million bond to help with the housing crisis.

We have an interview with a veteran of affordable housing development for her thoughts on how it might help.

Plus, next week marks the first anniversary of the Washington Bridge closure.

We'll have the latest on the reconstruction.

- [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by... - Hi, I'm John Hazen White, Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment" has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

I'm a proud supporter of this great program and Rhode Island PBS.

- Joining us on the panel, attorney and former state Representative Nick Gorham, "Providence Journal" reporter Antonia Noori Farzan, and David Salvatore, executive director of The Providence Foundation and former president of the Providence City Council.

Hello and welcome in to "Lively."

I'm Jim Hummel.

Rhode Island taxpayers have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop affordable housing and approved another 100 million-plus bond just last month to add to that effort.

But what are the metrics for success?

This week I sat down with Linda Weisinger, who heads up the nonprofit Pawtucket Central Falls Development.

She said they have got to get creative looking for properties to develop.

Here's part of our interview.

- For example, we purchased a property from the Diocese of Providence, and we bought a former schoolhouse, and we converted that into condominiums that we sold to working families.

We bought a former group home that was owned by the state of Rhode Island.

We converted that to home ownership.

We recently purchased a community bank.

We're converting that into rental housing, so, again, trying to think about adaptive reuse.

And I know that's a conversation that happens a lot at the state house as well as in communities across the state, is how we can reuse properties that are underutilized based on the current use that they have.

- Where could the state improve in terms of how this process goes getting from A to whatever the finish is?

- Yeah, I mean, I think there's a number of ways.

I mean, I think that the state can be a partner on property that they own, again, state-owned property.

I think that the cities and state can be more efficient with land-use regulations.

And that's one of the number-one barriers in creating housing, are the zoning regulations and the land use regulations that are in place.

Most of the developments that we create all require some set of municipal relief.

So we have to go to zoning for essentially mostly everything that we have developed over the last at least five years.

- If you could wave the wand and change one or two things from a state perspective, is there anything that you would like to see done?

- I mean, I would like to see a first-look model where there's state-owned property that a nonprofit is given the opportunity to purchase it before it becomes available on the open market.

I think that model works really well.

- Weisinger, who has worked in the affordable housing field for three decades, talked about some of the success her organization has had specifically in Pawtucket and Central Falls and how that may be an example for other communities.

You can see my entire interview with her right now on the Rhode Island PBS YouTube channel.

David, let me begin with you.

Of the many hats you wear, you were with the Realtors Association, so this is a topic I know.

And just react to some of what she said about getting creative.

- Well, I think she's absolutely right when Linda says that it's challenging in the state of Rhode Island to overcome some of the zoning barriers.

We have 39 cities and towns in a state of barely a million people and 39 different ways of zoning in the state of Rhode Island.

And so I think that has challenged our state, (clears throat) excuse me, in recent years in terms of creating more, not only rental units, but home ownership opportunities as well.

- [Jim] Antonia.

- And I think also there is a very good point that was made in the RIPEC report recently about how much confusion and overlap there is between all these different agencies.

You've got Rhode Island Housing.

You've got the Department of Housing, Housing Resources Commission.

Who's doing what?

Are they all conflicting with each other, overlapping?

It's really hard to tell sometimes.

- Yeah, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, all we know as RIPEC, put out a report right before Thanksgiving, you may have missed it, that said, you know, we've invested a quarter of a billion dollars plus the $100 billion bond For that 250 million, we only got shy of 1,600 units.

It's a lot of investment for maybe not so much return.

- RIPEC noted in their report that they need to de-emphasize the layers of bureaucracy.

And just as an example they used, the unit cost for one of the developments was over $400,000 per unit.

And you know, that's not affordable housing.

- Right.

- That's unaffordable housing.

I still think I, I've said this many times on this show, but Rhode Island has become a place where many people come because the inducements are tremendous.

We are a very generous state.

We don't have to be as generous as we are, and I think it's why we have a crisis for low and moderate-income housing.

We have a lot of people in this state who can't afford a home, and it wasn't like that 25 years ago.

It's just become more and more acute.

And the only way to do it is to spend $400,000 per unit with the bureaucracy we have or start looking at the inducements that bring people here.

- We were talking in the green room about home ownership, and you think of people, younger, 20s, 30s, what a disincentive that is.

You wonder whether some people are ever gonna be able to afford a house.

- Right, yeah.

They'll be lucky if they can afford a condo ever.

And I think, I mean, going back to all the problems with the bureaucracy, I think it also doesn't help that Department of Housing is now onto its fourth director in the very short time it's been around.

There's been a lot of turnover there and, honestly, not always a lot of transparency.

Chris Shea from the "Rhode Island Current" this week asked to interview the new housing secretary, was told she has a very packed schedule.

When he just asked what's on her schedule, he was told, "Oh, you have to put a public records request for that."

So I don't think that really builds confidence.

- I can speak to the city of Providence and the very high effective commercial property tax rate, which does not provide incentive for a developer to create mixed income in the downtown, we'll say, for instance.

The historic tax credit program is all but depleted at the state of Rhode Island.

The tax stabilization program that the mayor and the city council negotiate with developers is not a predictable process for developers.

So if the developers don't see the value add in terms of return on their investment, you're not going to see some of the mixed income rental units that we're looking for in specifically downtown Providence.

- Speaker Shekarchi has made this a big deal.

You know, they put a lot of the ARPA funds toward it, and I think a lot of people say, "Well, how are we moving the needle?"

Now, Linda Weisinger says there are things happening in ways that you may not see.

But I wonder some of the things that he's proposed, there's a little bit of pushback by some of the communities.

And specifically in Johnston, the mayor has said, "We don't think the state..." He may challenge the state law.

I'm not sure he's gonna do that on affordable housing, but I'm surprised it hasn't been challenged before this, have you?

Or maybe not.

- So there wasn't a lot of enforcement related to that state statute.

There weren't teeth in the state law.

- [Jim] You're supposed to aim for 10%- - 10%.

- Of your housing stock.

- By the way, an arbitrary number.

It's still not clear to me where 10% came from and why that was a blanket number across all 39 cities and towns.

But I will say that, you know, the law was never challenged because it was never fully enforced.

Speaker Shekarchi is looking to add more units in every municipality across Rhode Island.

And some municipalities were pushing back, saying, "No, we shouldn't have to comply with this."

- Yeah, I will say my colleague Patrick Anderson wrote about Johnston Mayor Polisena's potential plan to challenge the law.

And one thing, I think the key line in that story was that at no point in the interview did the mayor outline the grounds for challenging this and making the case it's unconstitutional.

I'm not sure if there is an argument there.

I mean, it's held up as law for a while.

- Forgetting about, you know, whether Polisena is right or wrong, or the speaker's right or wrong, when you've got the mayor of one of the larger cities/towns in the state fighting about this and saying, "This is just not the way to do it," I think General Assembly's gotta listen.

I mean, and they don't really enforce the 10%.

They haven't for years.

You're absolutely right.

- But I think with the newer law, Patrick put it perfectly.

He said this law has been turbocharged, right?

You know, there was a lot of pushback specifically from the League of Cities and Towns.

A couple of years ago they proposed coming up with this inventory of vacant buildings, right, schools, municipal buildings.

Now, what got lost in the sauce was everybody thought that the state was gonna come in and make you do that.

It was, if these are available, this is something maybe you could do.

But I think people, this is where the state telling the locals what to do.

Newport isn't the same as Central Falls, not the same as South Kingstown, isn't the same as Lincoln.

I think there is gonna be pushback.

In what way I don't know 'cause it's state law, but wouldn't you think Polisena is just the tip of the iceberg?

- But you still have municipalities complaining that their residents cannot find affordable places to call home.

- Right.

- So you can't have it both ways.

You can't say in one breath that we don't want more units because it's going to hurt our school district budget and then in the next breath say, "We're not an attractive state or municipality because there aren't affordable places to live."

- What about the laws that have been passed the last couple, a raft of laws by the General Assembly, and it's a one-size-fits-all, and it's streamlined zoning.

I appreciate it goes to that, but if you live in Foster... - (laughs) I was just gonna bring that up.

I mean, there are no services out there.

And I don't know if they've pushed for more low and moderate-income housing out there as they have in Providence or Johnston.

But it's true, the the first mantra you learn when you are a member of the General Assembly from western Rhode Island is one size fits all isn't the way to do it.

The General Assembly is dominated by the urban core.

They're the ones who pass all the laws, and you just end up saying, "This is just an idea from western Rhode Island," yeah.

- Any final thoughts on this?

- I mean, at this point it feels like it's basically just been a goal to aim to essentially.

It's like, "Hey, wouldn't this be nice if you guys got to 10%?"

But I think what we are now seeing change that was in Patrick's story is how now if you're not making that 10%, developers can kind of override the process if they're gonna be adding to the affordable housing number.

And that's where you're starting to see pushback.

- Okay, next week, it's hard to believe, maybe it's not hard to believe, it'll be the year anniversary of the closure of the westbound lanes of the Washington Bridge.

We've talked about this virtually every week since then.

Nick, for some of us who live in the East Bay, it seems like it's been 10 years.

I just wanted to... We'd be remiss if we didn't mark it.

There really hasn't been a lot of new things going on, but we still don't have a timeline or a price or a target date for when the new span's gonna be rebuilt.

- I think it's bad news for Governor McKee.

This is slowly enveloping his entire work as a governor.

It's not going well at all, and people are mad as hell.

- [Jim] We're gonna be in the election cycle.

- They should be.

- 2025 begins really the kickoff to the election cycle, right?

- Yeah, I mean, I think the most positive thing you can say at this point is that they have been able to get from the federal government a pretty substantial chunk of what it's gonna cost to rebuild it.

So it does not seem at this point... Tax bills will surely be on the hook for something, but at this point, it doesn't seem like a lot.

We'll see.

I mean, we already found out this week that it was $700,000 for the pause in construction earlier this year, so.

- They better get that money in the bank before January 20th.

(chuckles) That's all I have to say.

- So there is a commitment from Washington, if that comes to fruition with the change in administration.

That could take longer than expected.

I have confidence in the Rhode Island delegation that they'll get it done, but there's still I think some unpredictability around it.

- We haven't had you on for a while.

It's been over the summer and into the fall.

That's our fault for not having you here, conflict of schedule.

From the Providence perspective, how is this affected?

- I think it still impacts the business community, whether it be on the East Side in downtown Providence.

People are changing their routes either driving to work or coming home.

So yes, I think it still adversely impacts the business community throughout Providence and East Providence, by the way.

It's not only the capital city.

Folks are looking for answers.

I will say the several times that I have traveled on 195, it has been smooth.

I think since they've opened up that third lane, they've alleviated some of the pressures.

But if there's an accident, we all know it's going to happen during rush hour, whether it be in the morning or evening hours.

- Yeah, I think 4:30 to 6:00 PM eastbound is not when you wanna be there.

- Worst possible time.

- Just ask my wife.

Antonia's been doing a lot of stories actually for a long time about shoreline access, some of the complaints.

There's a law pending that's being challenged about the shoreline access legislation.

Where do we start?

You had a story.

Well, you pick it out.

You've had a couple of different stories about shoreline access.

Where do you wanna go?

- Yeah, a couple different things going on.

One is that the law, the new law I'm calling it even though it's about two years old now, Judge Taft-Carter did signal in July that she seemed to have some issues with that from a separation of power standpoint.

She did not issue a final decision on it and said that would be coming soon.

We don't have that yet, so that could be coming at any point.

I don't know when soon means.

Separately, there's this issue with the Quidnessett Country Club where they built a seawall without getting permission, pretty big no-no.

And Save the Bay has gotten really frustrated with how long the CRMC is taking to deal with that.

There is, as of right now, as far as I know, a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, but the last two have been canceled or postponed, rather.

So that's been a source of frustration.

- But they're in effect asking for forgiveness rather than permission.

- Exactly, yeah.

They're asking to change the rules retroactively because where they are, you wouldn't be allowed to build a seawall to begin with even if they had asked permission.

- [Jim] Yeah, exactly.

- Well, I think with the climate change that we're experiencing, we're gonna see more and more of this.

The interesting thing though is that I think Judge Taft-Carter may be right.

And I will admit on this show, I said I thought the General Assembly had the power to do what they did in changing the meaning of the shoreline, you know, the width and everything, creating a new path, essentially.

Well, when I saw her decision, which rests on separation of powers, it really is the judiciary's role, final, final, in interpreting the Rhode Island Constitution.

So, they tried to just say the constitution doesn't really mean what it says, Judge Taft-Carter, and that they could change it.

- Right.

- And Judge Taft-Carter said, "Only the courts can change it," and she went back to the case from 1982.

I think it's State v. Ibbison.

I read that this morning.

It's a very strong case.

I really think the separation of powers part of our constitution may proscribe the General Assembly from doing what they're doing.

- Folks, never think that our panelists do not come prepared.

Nick is reading court cases, boy, before he comes to "Lively."

I appreciate that.

- Well, I sponsored the separation of powers amendment.

- Okay.

- I wrote it, and I got it on the ballot, so I'm biased I guess.

But you know, what are you gonna do?

- The issue in that case, though, is a property-taking.

- Right.

- You know, you can say the 10, but when I bought that property, it said this, and now the state's saying something different.

- Yeah, and look, I think we need to strike a balance between the quality-of-life issues and private property rights as well.

And I'm sure the courts will come down with a decision hopefully that everybody will accept.

But look, at the end of the day, when somebody buys a piece of property, they want to know that what they're buying is what's recorded in the deed, and that might not be the case here.

- Irony is that we could have had a constitutional convention to settle this question of what it says, but there's not interest in that.

- [Jim] Didn't happen, yeah.

You weren't holding your breath, were you?

- I'm disappointed yet again, but that's okay.

- Just quickly on the CRMC case with Quidnessett, so basically what they're saying is, look, as Nick said with climate change or whatever, they're coming back and saying basically, "Give us approval after the fact"?

- They're not even saying that.

They're saying, "Change the rules so that we would hypothetically be allowed to have a seawall in this area, and then we'll go and apply for the seawall, which by the way, we already have."

And the reason that's controversial is because whenever you put up a seawall, the surrounding areas that don't have seawalls, they get erosion a lot worse.

So that's why groups like Save the Bay would prefer not to have them get permission for this retroactively.

- Yeah- - And wanna take it down.

- The judge said in July that it was going to be soon.

- This is for the shoreline access.

- [Jim] Yeah, for the shoreline access.

- Yes, soon, so.

- And you said with CRMC that there's a meeting Tuesday we're taping on Friday.

- So far, so far.

Yeah, I will say when they decided to give the country club another chance to present their point of view in September, I was told, oh, the meeting could be as soon as October.

Then they got new legal counsel.

They asked for a delay.

Last month, there was delay because- - [Jim] They've had quorum problems.

- There was some unspecified scheduling issue last time.

So that's kind of why there's a lot of frustration building is when you say maybe next month, and then it becomes three months then.

- Okay, right before when we taped the last time right before Thanksgiving, we were off last week, the judge in the Providence versus the state school funding situation determined that Providence needs to pay $15 million more this year to fund the schools, and that's gonna be baked in going forward.

David, I'm glad we have you on because I always, and I said this, I always wondered when Mayor Elorza, and more lately Mayor Smiley said, "We're holding the line on taxes," whether they maybe shouldn't have been holding the line on taxes.

Were they talking about this back when you were on the city council?

'Cause the state had already taken over, and the city needs to fund the schools.

How did we get to this point that there's such a gaping hole in what they think should go to the schools?

- Well, I think that's a great question.

(clears throat) Excuse me.

- [Jim] Do you have a great answer?

- No, but that's the question that the mayor has been asking, right, how did we get here since 2019?

I think there was a good-faith effort when I was a member of the council and the takeover happened in 2019 that there would be strong communication and that we would bring Providence schools to a standard that was acceptable to families and the city.

That didn't happen in addition to a shortfall, a deficit in the school department budget.

Now, I think that this was the best outcome that the city of Providence could have received.

It's not $55 million.

It's $15 million.

But I think Mayor Smiley is absolutely right in asking for some accountability in terms of where this funding is being spent.

We always argued, many of us on the council, that the school department was always top-heavy in terms of administrative roles, in addition to contracting consultants, millions of dollars a year.

So I think the mayor is right to call for an audit of the school department's finances.

I think he has some good ideas on how they can reduce that deficit.

But right now, just the infighting between RIDE, PPSD, and the administration, it's not good for families.

- I think the city was also really lucky that this happened at a time when there still was a little flexibility with that American Rescue Plan money 'cause the largest chunk of where they got these millions from was money that was supposed to go to reparations through that project that Elorza had come up with.

And now, I mean, that had to be committed by December, I believe, so, you know, if this happens again two years down the line, there's not gonna be a couple extra million from that program that you can move over.

- But that's the new baseline going forward.

It's not like it's just 15.

It's 15 now, next year, plus more.

- I guess it just shows that putting the state of Rhode Island together with the city of Providence, those two bureaucracies, wasn't it kind of apparent that could very well be a- - A recipe for problems?

- Bad result.

(laughs) - Let me just quickly... We do a whole show on this, but do you think that schools should go back to city control?

- I have mixed feelings.

I have mixed feelings.

A lot of us are not happy with the results from the takeover.

I know the pandemic had a lot to do with that.

I do have faith in the mayor that if and when he does receive the schools back that he has a plan in place so that there is some comfort with families who send their children to Providence schools.

- Okay, I wanna get to national in just a second, but let's do outrage or kudo.

Antonia, what do you have this week?

- So my outrage is a story out of Pawtucket about the wrongful arrest of Joao Monteiro, which is just a crazy story.

Basically, you've got this guy arrested on a cold case from 1988 on really dubious evidence.

Manuel Milkowitz at "The Boston Globe" had a great story outlining just how flawed this was, down to the fact that no one even knows for a fact that this girl was murdered, this young girl who was found dead in what could have just been a very tragic accident.

So, I mean, the fact that he was publicly accused of this, had his life ruined, he got a settlement now, but it's really outrageous how he was treated.

- I remember it at the time.

I thought, "Wow, this is amazing."

And he basically is saying, "Where do I go to get my reputation back?"

He's getting a $1 million settlement, but what does he do for that?

- [Antonia] Yeah.

- Nick, what do you got?

- Well, I'm a URI grad with a chip on his shoulder constantly because PC gets all the good press.

- Maybe not tomorrow.

- But kudos to the University of Rhode Island on two fronts, the most high profiles.

The football team is the best it's been at least since 1985.

And the basketball team is eight and 0, and that's the most in 47 years, the best start in 47 years.

And it isn't in any of the media except because PC takes all the oxygen out of the room, so anyway.

- But PC gets to visit URI this weekend.

- I've got that big chip.

Yeah, there's gonna be a meeting this weekend, so maybe we'll talk about it a little more.

- I had heard that they had not gotten off to this good start since Roger Williams was the power forward for URI.

- I think that's possible.

I think that's possible.

- We've gotta check the historical records on that.

What do you have?

- Earlier this week, a Johnston planning board official compared an affordable housing project as the future Chad Brown of Johnston.

And I wanna tip my cap to Councilman Justin Roias, who came out and defended his constituents and defended the city.

I think for too many years municipalities or folks outside of Providence have used the capital city as a punching bag.

Let me be very clear that if the city of Providence fails, so does the state of Rhode Island.

We are a city-state.

So I wanna tip my cap counselor Justin Roias.

He did the right thing.

He stood by his constituents in the city, and as a former elected official in the city of Providence, that's something that I can appreciate.

- And this is very timely because it's in the context of what we were...

This is the development that Mayor Polisena was talking about because they wanna put up 255 units there.

And he basically equated it, you know, to the negative things that housing projects have gotten over the years.

He's probably thinking about Chad Brown maybe in the '80s or '90s, right, 'cause it's- - Regardless of the time period that he was thinking, don't perceive that everybody is performing illegal activities, especially in an affordable housing unit.

- Yeah.

- People are vulnerable.

They need places to live.

And while I'm not taking a position on the Johnston affordable housing unit project, I thought the counselor was right to call out that planning board member.

- Okay, we have just a couple of minutes left.

After saying for months and months and months and repeatedly that he would not pardon his son, President Biden did just the opposite this week.

What I found interesting, Antonia, this goes back 10 years, so I'm not sure what Hunter Biden was doing in 2014.

I can't remember what I was doing- - I guess his Dad knows.

- Two years ago.

Yeah.

So, look, maybe people just chalk this up to politics as usual, but I wonder when you saw that what you thought.

- I don't think people chalk it up to politics as usual, honestly.

I think the fact that there has been so much outrage shows that people are frustrated that he said all along he wasn't gonna do this and then turned around and did it.

I mean, people have pretty low standards for politicians, but I think- - Really?

- Lying through your teeth like that, people don't appreciate it.

- [Jim] Nick.

- It seems to me it started a domino effect.

I guess there are many, many people who know a lot more than his son about some of the transgressions.

And I think he did it because he not only wanted to protect his son, he wanted to protect himself.

But I think the problems engendered by his son are widespread, and I think it's gonna be a problem for the president.

I really do.

- I fear that this decision is what people will remember Joe Biden for.

- Yeah.

- Rather than a lot of the good that he did in bringing dignity back to the White House and the president's office in that position.

I can understand why he would want to do this, and I think he's named several other folks in high-profile positions that he wants to pardon.

Look, we all know Donald Trump and what he's capable of, okay?

But I do think it's a bad look, and I fear that he's gonna be remembered for this decision and not some of the good things that he did.

- And you remember there was some of this talk when Trump four years ago was just getting ready to leave, who's he gonna... You know, the Steve Bannons and the Roger Stones and all that, and so I think everybody kind of lumps that in like, oh, they're just trying to take care of themselves.

- What about his brother Jim?

Is he gonna pardon him?

And how close does it get to the president when it's just too close for comfort?

You know, this is a bad situation.

I really think it is.

- Could be setting a precedent for other future presidents to- - Right, well, the pardon is purely discretionary.

- It is.

- But- - But I think that he hasn't exercised that power that often compared to a lot of other presidents, hasn't issued a lot of pardons, almost kind of makes it worse in a lot of people's eyes because it looks like you're giving special treatment to your family.

- Right, yeah.

- Well, the other ones, I mean, Clinton had the controversial one with Mark Rich, and you go back to Bush.

They all do it, but I think this cuts close when it's your own son.

I mean, it's so blatant.

And maybe he thinks, "I'm 80," whatever years he is now.

"Look, people can judge me however they want.

I need to take care of him," so- - Yeah.

- I don't know.

Any other thing you're looking for as the Trump administration comes in?

30 seconds.

- I'm looking for civility, and I fear we're not gonna have that in government in Washington anytime soon, but I'm hopeful.

- Yeah, great.

All right, folks, it's a quick 30 minutes.

We appreciate your coming back after the Thanksgiving holiday.

We appreciate you spending some time this week with us.

David, good to see you again, Antonia, and Nick.

If you don't catch us Friday at 7:00 or Sunday at noon, we archive all of our shows at ripbs.org/lively.

We're all over social media on Facebook, X, Twitter, whatever you wanna call it.

And if you're on the run, take us along on your favorite podcast.

We can go mobile with you.

Come back next week as we head toward Christmas.

We're gonna see what's going on in the last days of the Biden administration and get ready for the new year with some of the legislative priorities.

We hope you come back next week for all the very latest and the analysis as "A Lively Experiment" continues.

Have a great weekend.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by... - Hi, I'm John Hazen White, Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment" has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

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