Three times over the past two years, Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena, Jr. struck out in his search for a site to build a new public safety complex and town hall to replace the town’s aging municipal buildings. Then last fall he saw the agenda for a planning board meeting — and his chance to go to bat again.
The agenda for the meeting on Dec. 3, 2024, listed a pre-application involving 31 acres of undeveloped land off of George Waterman Road, near Route 44.
“I knew the land was available, but I wasn’t aware how much land that was over there,” Polisena said in a recent interview. “So I put two and two together. This would be a perfect site. It is on a main road, it has sewer, water, and all the utilities we need.”
There was just one problem: The land is owned by a developer looking to build a 252-unit apartment complex affordable to low and middle-income residents. It was exactly the kind of development state leaders wanted to see more of to help ease Rhode Island’s ongoing housing crisis.
But not Polisena, 35, now halfway through his first term, whose father served four terms as mayor before him. “I don’t think that would be conducive to a mid-size community like Johnston,” he said.
Polisena, who won 69% of the vote during the 2022 election, said he understands the need to build more housing for working families in his town. So what’s a mayor dubbed a ‘practical Democrat’ by the local weekly paper — a mayor who is also a lawyer by occupation — to do?
Turn to a tool typically reserved by municipalities for road projects.
On Monday night, the Johnston Town Council voted 5-0 to pass a resolution to pursue the legal condemnation of the George Waterman Road site after obtaining an appraisal that determined its fair market value was $775,000. The town will now file an action in Providence County Superior Court.
Polisena is invoking the power of eminent domain to seize the land from the developer in what may be a first for the state in blocking an affordable housing construction project. It’s a legal maneuver that would allow the town to acquire the site for public use by providing just compensation to the private owner.
The mayor first announced his decision on Jan. 27, the day before the town council voted 4-0 to approve his plan at a special meeting that drew an overflow crowd to the Johnston Municipal Court on Atwood Avenue. Members of the public spilled out into the parking lot. Only one resident spoke to the council, calling the proposal “an extreme amount of housing,” the Johnston Sunrise reported.
Polisena is openly defying statewide Democratic leaders, who despite passing dozens of laws in recent years to cut red tape and incentivize more development, have withheld their disapproval or criticism.
Blindsided
The day before the council voted to authorize the land seizure, the developer for the 252-unit complex was still trying to get a meeting with the mayor to negotiate the size and scope of the project.
“Instead, we were notified by reporters about this attempt to condemn,” Kelley Morris Salvatore, the Providence lawyer representing project developer Waterman Chenango LLC, said in an interview. “It clearly was a knee-jerk reaction — they really want to block an affordable housing project, not site a public safety project.”
Waterman Chenango was founded by Salvatore Compagnone of Providence, who died on Jan. 5, 2024, at the age of 95. His son, Salvatore Jr., is still involved with the LLC, Morris Salvatore said. The applicant listed on the most recent planning documents is Lucille Santoro.
The site was assessed at $277,000 in 2022, when Birchwood Manor Associates, an LLC founded by the senior Compagnone transferred the land to Waterman Chenango, according to town tax records. Birchwood Manor Associates acquired the land for $250,000 in 2021.
“We’re living in a world where we don’t have enough housing for our sons and daughters who are just coming out of college, our elderly residents who want to downsize,” Morris Salvatore said. “We’re talking about firefighters, teachers, and young professionals.”
Morris Salvatore attended Monday’s Town Council meeting but declined to comment on whether the developer plans to fight the land seizure.
“He knows we are entitled to build these 252 units,” she said of Polisena in a recent interview. “But instead he wants to take the property for a sham police department, fire department, and town hall.”
The eminent domain resolution approved in late January notes the fire department’s Atwood Avenue headquarters built in 1968 needs new plumbing, electrical system, sprinklers and roof.
The same applies to the police headquarters on Atwood Avenue, built in 1978. A police department report notes the building was initially designed for 34 officers and employees, which has since doubled. The building is also prone to repeated flooding when it rains.
Town Hall, built in 1939, has no handicapped accessibility.
Johnston Town Planner Thomas Deller said local officials have been trying to find a site to build a new municipal complex for at least two and a half years, choosing to operate under the radar while conducting the land search.
“We didn’t want to make a big deal of it until we found something that made sense,” Deller said. “There’s very little land left that we have options at — and George Waterman has potential.”
Cost estimates for the new public safety complex range between $40 million to $50 million, Polisena told Rhode Island Current.
Under 10% of Johnston’s housing stock is affordable
Preliminary plans for Waterman Chenango’s proposed development showed five rectangular apartment buildings arranged at the end of a road off George Waterman Road and around connected parking lots. Roughly 18 acres were buildable, Deller said.
The developer planned to use the state’s Low and Moderate Income Housing law, which limits the ability of municipalities to block projects if less than 10% of their residences qualify as affordable.
In Johnston, about 7.9% of housing units are considered affordable, according to the 2024 HousingWorksRI factbook. The town needs to add another 261 affordable units to meet the state’s 10% threshold.
The median sale price of a home in Johnston was $475,500 in January, up 26.3% from $376,500 in January 2024, according to single-family sales data tracked by the Rhode Island Association of Realtors.
“To be frank, over the last five years, there has not been much effort by anyone to come in and propose affordable housing,” Deller said. “This year, we’ve had one application.”
Deller was not referring to the proposed complex off George Waterman Road. He was talking about a 32-unit development in the rural Shun Pike neighborhood off Peck Hill Road, which the planning board gave its preliminary approval on Aug. 20, 2024.
In a letter to the planning board, Polisena called the proposed apartment complex “destructive” to the town.
“The choice is yours. Bulldoze ahead with your current plan and be prepared to fight a town of 30,000 people in the process,” Polisena wrote. “Or, withdraw it and work with us to create something the town can and will support.”
Can a town just take land?
Under Rhode Island General Law, eminent domain can be used to remove hazardous buildings, revitalize abandoned lots, and clarify land ownership.
Property seizures are most commonly done to expand and build roadways, explained Roger Williams University School of Law Professor Jonathan Gutoff. But authorizing eminent domain is usually done as a last resort.
“Lots of time, they don’t need to actually use the power, they simply negotiate a sale with the owner,” Gutoff said in an interview.
A property owner can challenge the land seizure in court, but Gutoff said it tends to be an uphill battle — especially if public use is cited.
“And Johnston’s clearly claiming it’s providing for public ownership and use,” he said.
State and federal courts have struck down “pretextual” land seizures, including Rhode Island’s Supreme Court. The court in 2006 ruled against the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (now the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation) after it tried to seize a parking garage at T.F. Green International Airport.
“I could see a similar sort of argument made here,” Gutoff said.
‘A dangerous precedent’
“Johnston is not Barrington. Johnston is not East Greenwich. Johnston is not North Kingstown,” Polisena said, referring to coastal communities where median household income is in the six figures. “I cannot go to my property taxpayers and raise my taxes every year — Johnston is a working-class community.”
The average median household income in Johnston is $83,001, according to the 2024 HousingWorksRI factbook.
Polisena’s focus on the working-class character of Johnston echoes a familiar argument many municipalities have used against multifamily housing. The Dec. 3 planning board meeting drew heated debate from residents, with one calling the proposal a threat to safety.
Melina Lodge, executive director of Housing Network of Rhode Island, said as far as she is aware, Johnston’s use of eminent domain is the first time a municipality had done so to halt a housing development.
“This sets a very dangerous precedent for other municipalities who may want to think about blocking affordable housing,” she said in an interview. “How this particular incident is treated will set the tone going forward on what’s possible.”
So far, the reaction from state officials has been mild disappointment.
“Affordable housing remains one of Rhode Island’s most pressing needs, and solving this shortage requires a statewide, collaborative approach,” Rhode Island Department of Housing spokesperson Emily Marshall said in an emailed statement. “We need all cities and towns to work together not only to find solutions that meet local needs but also to tackle the broader housing challenges across the state.”
Even Rhode Island’s House speaker, who has made housing his priority, is sidestepping the town’s decision to block the proposed apartment complex.
“Mayor Polisena and the Johnston Town Council acted in what they believed was in the best interests of the citizens of their community,” House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi said in a statement. “However, I hope Johnston and every community in Rhode Island look to create more affordable housing opportunities to address the ongoing housing crisis.”
Randy Rossi, director of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, was also indifferent to Polisena’s decision to block the apartment complex.
“The League recognizes and supports the need for housing growth across the state,” Rossi said in a statement. “We value our municipal leaders and their authority to make decisions in the best interest of their residents.”
Johnston’s state lawmakers seem to want to defer to Polisena’s judgment on the issue.
Democratic Rep. Deborah Fellela, whose district includes the 31-acre lot, said she thought Polisena was right to halt the development.
“I do see the need for affordable housing, but I think that project was just too overreaching and too big,” she told Rhode Island Current. “It’s too bad they couldn’t come to some agreement to make it a smaller project.”
Democratic freshman Sen. Andrew Dimitri said he believed the lot could not handle such a large apartment complex.
“The two main roads it’s located on are already over-traveled,” Dimitri told Rhode Island Current. “That size of a development in Johnston is just not sustainable.”
Even freshman Rep. Richard Fascia, a Johnston Republican who has previously worked at the Providence Housing Authority and nonprofit homelessness services provider Crossroads RI, declined to comment on the town’s use of eminent domain.
“This is an issue that is squarely in the mayor’s wheelhouse,” he said.
Should Johnston officials move forward with their plans for a new public safety complex, Shekarchi said he would like to see the existing fire and police stations repurposed into affordable housing units.
Polisena said that would ultimately be up to any developer who acquires those lots.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
