Housing “Reforms” Amplify Growth Almost Exclusively In RI’s Rural Towns
The Rhode Island Executive Office of Housing recently released its 2025 Integrated Housing Report, which shows that the state is adding housing at a rate not seen since the 1980s. The report credits what it calls housing reforms, which have been enacted by the state legislature in the last few years, for these increased growth rates.
Those “housing reforms” are the legislative changes that removed control of land use from local governments. The result has been, as evidenced in the report, that (1) the state as a whole has seen a housing increase of slightly less than 1% for the years 2021 to 2024, but (2) growth rates have been much higher than the state average in some towns — almost exclusively in Rhode Island’s rural areas.
According to the report, the highest growth rates for the three-year period 2021 to 2024 were in West Greenwich, 6.11%; Glocester, 5.62%; South Kingstown, 4.8%; Exeter, 4.64%; Charlestown, 4.58%; Central Falls, 4.55%; Cumberland, 4.55%; North Kingstown, 3.37%; and Tiverton, 3.16%.
With the exception of Central Falls and North Kingstown, none of the above communities are identified in Housing 2030 (the new state plan to address Rhode Island’s housing needs) or any other state guide plan as places to encourage high growth rates.
In contrast, much lower growth rates were found in Providence, 0.4%; Cranston, 0.55%; East Providence, 1.22%; and North Providence, 1.55%. These are communities where Housing 2030 and other state guide plans say growth should be encouraged, but these urban areas are among the lowest growth rates according to the 2025 report.
The report states that “maintaining the momentum is critical to resolving our state’s housing crisis.” But that momentum is aimed squarely at Rhode Island’s remaining farms and forests and away from urban areas.
At every census since 1970, Charlestown and other rural towns have grown at a much faster rate than the state as a whole. The momentum of the housing reforms appears to be amplifying these differences, while doing very little to direct growth to areas inside the Urban Services Boundary where public water, sewage treatment plants, and transportation are available.
To illustrate how persistent this trend is in Charlestown, ten-year census figures for dwelling units over the last fifty years are: 1980, 55.5% increase; 1990, 38.4%; 2000, 13.1%; 2010, 7.2%; and 2020, 4.6%. Charlestown housing units increased 173% over a 50-year period that saw the state’s overall population grow by less than 16%.
The RI Office of Housing is now reporting that Charlestown’s housing units have increased as much in three years as they did in the previous ten.
This continued — and now amplified — pattern of high growth in rural areas and negligible growth in urban areas directly contradicts Land Use 2025, Rhode Island’s plan for conservation and development in the 21st century.
Land Use 2025 was meant to reverse the continued loss of forest and farmland by retaining the distinction between urban and rural areas. It identifies areas within the Urban Services Boundary as optimum for accommodating the bulk of the state’s development needs — areas where growth should be encouraged by state policies and investments — while recommending that growth in other areas, those more suited for conservation, not be encouraged or supported.
As a rural town outside the Urban Services Boundary, Charlestown embraced Land Use 2025. Between 2000 and 2022, in collaboration with groups such as The Nature Conservancy and RI’s Department of Environmental Management, the town preserved thousands of acres of land, employed conservation development for subdivisions, managed wastewater, and worked to protect groundwater and other natural resources. Although Charlestown never stopped growing — and always grew at a higher rate than the state as a whole — it used zoning and subdivision regulations to guide growth to the most appropriate areas within parcels, minimizing impacts to natural resources. Now the legislative reforms are forcing faster growth while blocking the protections those land use regulations provided.
Rhode Island needs more housing, but not in direct opposition to Land Use 2025 — and not with the highest growth rates continuing to target the state’s last remaining rural areas.
Links to state documents mentioned in this post:
You can learn more about the author, Ruth Platner, at her profile page.
May 23, 2026 @ 3:29 pm
To help get the word out to the legislature that we are not happy with legislation that supercedes our zoning and regulations meant to protect our vital natural resources we need people on town council to aggressively make the point, be at the hearings, send letters. Resolutions are fine but more needs to be done. Joining with other similar towns to express our displeasure. The Planning Commission has to evaluate proposals with the laws as they exist today. We need people to step up to run for Council and Planning on that platform and the protection of resources generally, …salt ponds, forests, farmland, dark skies, and to provide affordable housing that is in keeping with the character and density currently in Charlestown. If we do not want Charlestown to change too much we need engaged residents to stand up for it as well. Unfortunately developers are loathe to build smaller houses which are more affordable generally but mean less profit. “Affordable ” housing as defined by the state is deeded for a certain period so that anyone occupying it must meet certain income levels. A subsidy is provided to the developer by way of dollars or increassed units, three-quarters of which are market rate i.e. mostly unaffordable to the general populace. That three-quarters puts us further behind in meeting the state mandated 10% “Affordable”housing. It does not make sense here especially without public water and sewer. Hopefully the legislature will rescind some of these new laws.
May 11, 2026 @ 9:53 am
Will the State’s new mandate increase the development in Charlestown? It seems that urbanization often favors dismantling of our rural nature.