The Highway Becomes a Parking Lot

As one of the primary roads in and out of the city’s East Side, Gano Street sees thousands of cars every day using a ramp at the base of the road  to Route 195. It is because of that heavy traffic that the Fox Point Neighborhood Association objected a decade ago when the owner of a residential lot right next to the on-ramp began using it as a parking lot.

Daisy Schnepel, a founding member and past president of the association, said the group believed strongly that having a parking lot not only violated the city’s zoning laws, but was dangerous for cars getting in and out of the property. So the association took the owners, Steven Puleo and Michelle Boutin, to court, where a judge agreed the zoning board was wrong to grant a variance allowing the lot in an R-2 residential zone, something prohibited in the city’s zoning ordinances.

“The relocation of the highway was going to impact the neighborhood and we wanted to make sure that the neighborhood wasn’t going to be ruined by the relocation,” Schnepel said in an interview with The Hummel Report. Schnepel said the parking lot was one of several issues the association took on during the early stages of the Route 195 relocation project, including a proposed drive-thru window at the Dunkin Donuts just up Gano Street and the fate of the old Shooters nightclub at India Point.

“We felt very strongly that the Gano Street and Wickenden Street exits were gateways to Providence and gateways to our community,” she said. “We were concerned that if there was a parking lot right next to an entrance to the highway, there would be congestion and possible accidents. The spacing was bad.”

That was seven years ago. But The Hummel Report found that within a year of the judge’s ruling, the city sent the owners violation notices for continuing to use the lot for parking without the city’s permission and in defiance of the court order. Those violations started in November 2007 and continued through 2008, then stopped. Why? The city couldn’t tell us. The violations resumed again in mid-2012 and were issued virtually monthly. The city eventually placed a lien on the property.

After we brought it to the city’s attention last month, the law department began looking into a course of action. Beyond that, answers are tough to come by.

Jeff Lykins, the director of the city’s Inspections and Standards Department, which is the enforcement arm on zoning issues, could not provide us specifics when we sat down with him earlier this month.

Hummel: It was violation notices almost monthly, saying you’re still not in compliance. At what point does the city say, “Well clearly he’s ignoring us. We need to do something here.” How bad does it have to get?

Lykins: Right. These situations vary with each case. And what I don’t have available to me is what kind of interaction it was. It could be he was promising to do something and they were giving him time. I don’t know that. That’s a possibility. Or it could be that with the number of cases we have here that it was overlooked.

Lykins could not even tell us whether the city collected any fines. Over the past six months, we found several cars regularly parked there. Most are tenants of a four-story apartment building two lots over at the corner of Gano and Wickenden, also owned by Puleo and Boutin. The city didn’t have to go very far to find evidence, as its tax assessment company took a picture that is posted in its public online database with three cars in the lot during a revaluation.

Hummel: I’m wondering what message that sends to the neighbors, who took this to court. They spent multiple  thousands of dollars, they trusted the city on enforcement and it seems, quite frankly, that the city dropped the ball here. Would you agree with that assessment?

Lykins: I don’t have enough knowledge to say that I agree with that. It could be that he was indicating compliance was forthcoming . I don’t know if he indicated to one of my inspectors that he has a zoning application, so I can only speculate.

A sign on the lot says it’s for sale, so we called the number and talked with a man who identified himself as Steve. He didn’t try to hide the fact he was using the lot for parking.

Hummel: I saw a sign about the property on Gano Street.

Steve: Yeah, the parking … well, does it look like an empty lot?

Hummel: Yes.

Steve: That is selling in conjunction with a house that’s on the corner of Wickenden and Gano. I can’t sell one without the other because that I use for parking.

Hummel: So you use the lot for what, tenants for parking?

Steve: Yeah, I sometimes have like two, three cars. It depends. That’s all I use it for.

He did not mention the city had a lien on the property. Steve also suggested we contact the real estate agent handling the property, a woman named Michelle. She told us the lot is going for $149,000 and the apartment building $595,000. She reiterated that they’re a package deal.

“It’s a slimy way to go about winning a case — to just let it lie and let everybody forget about it, then creep back in again,” Schnepel said. “There wasn’t any effort made to change the decision and to make it right and legal.”

The city says it expects to decide how to go forward later this month.

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