Rhode Island is the smallest U.S. state by land area, and the second most densely populated state, exceeded only in density of development by New Jersey. Charlestown, at 160 dwelling units per square mile, is the most densely populated rural town in the state and the most densely populated community lacking both sewers and public water.
RI DEM Onsite Wastewater Treatment System rules focus on individual system compliance rather than cumulative impact analysis. While designed to prevent individual failures, they fail to address the collective, long-term nutrient loading from high-density, individual septic systems on groundwater and coastal watersheds.
State legislation passed in the last three legislative sessions has claimed to be about affordable housing, but in Charlestown the only result has been more market-rate units. Increasing supply might lower housing costs in some communities, but it hasn’t worked in coastal towns like ours.
On January 29, the Town Council consented to issue a $1.05-million “open space bond” as a one-year note—money that will be borrowed, held in a bank account, not spent, and paid back at the end of a year. Borrowing money just to issue the bond violates common sense. Thus, the Town Council may want to propose amending the Charter language so that a bond does not need to be issued unnecessarily.
At the meeting on November 10, 2025, Councilors Deb Carney, Craig Marr, and Peter Slom voted to borrow up to $1.05 million; Councilor Stokes voted no. They voted to issue a bond not to preserve open space, but to finance unspecified future projects.
In Charlestown, the fall bird migration begins in August and continues into November. Birds are tracked on radar and thousands of birds are passing through Washington County each night. In this post are links to tools that predict and monitor bird migration in real time through our area, and tips on how you can help the birds in their long migrations.
Parts of the new 2030 housing plan roughly follow Land Use 2025, but the assigned housing production numbers in the plan reverse the goals of Land Use 2025 and enforce the continued population movement toward the more rural areas, with its related loss of forest, farms, wildlife habitat, and natural beauty.
Most cities and towns in Rhode Island are “incentivized” to provide 10% of their year-round housing as low or moderate-income housing (LMIH). The “incentive” is that in towns without 10% deed-restricted, affordable units, developers can file development proposals known as “Comprehensive Permits” that allow them to build at much higher densities than zoning or environmental objectives would usually allow as long as 25% of their units are LMIH.
Apologists for the current Town Council have cherry picked a series of events claiming to prove that the majority CCA Town Council from 2018 to 2020 did as the current Town Council has done and not respected the will of the voters by not advancing elected Planning Commission members in their voting order. This claim is not true, but because their lies are interspersed with just enough bits of truth, some will think them true.
We have created a community characterized by protected land, but development is still proceeding at more than 5 times the rate of preservation; still our political opponents see land conservation as a threat to population growth!
I’ve been elected to the Planning Commission since 1998, and I watched the Commission for ten years before that. In all that time, not a single person who was a neighbor of a large residential subdivision spoke in favor of the proposed development, and most asked that it not be approved. If residents were getting what they wanted, land would not be developed, but approvals of residential development have far more to do with state law and property rights than residents’ desires. My story can illustrate what can be done, however to preserve the land next door that you might love.
My election campaigns always seem to present unexpected challenges. I declared my candidacy for Charlestown Town Council in June, and a biopsy on July 15 found a small tumor in my throat. I had, and have, no symptoms except for a swollen lymph node. I will get through this and be okay. My voice may be quieter for a short time, but it won’t be silent and I will continue doing my best to protect the beautiful, natural character of our community.
When: Wednesday, August 21 at 7:00 pm
Where: Charlestown Town Hall, 4540 South County Trail
The Charlestown Planning Commission is hosting a public workshop to present a draft of commercial and village standards to promote good design for new development in commercial areas in Charlestown.
There may be some misunderstanding of what the phrase “going to court” means, but the effect of trying to remove the voters’ right to vote is the same, no matter what vehicle is used. Seeking a Declaratory Judgment is an action to overturn the elected Planning Commission. It is an action with serious legal consequences. An article in the Providence Journal dated November 30, 2007, included in this post, described the earlier attempt to get a Declaratory Judgment regarding the legality of Charlestown having an elected Planning Commission.
Although there was plenty of bad news for Charlestown’s environment in new laws passed by the Rhode Island Legislature in 2024, there was good news for the 47% of RI voters who are unaffiliated. Legislation which was passed by both the House and the Senate and was signed into law by the Governor on June 25, allows unaffiliated party voters to vote in either party’s primary without becoming affiliated to a party.
On May 9, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management announced the award of $2.6 million in grants to help communities and local conservation organizations protect valuable green space throughout the state. Eleven projects will receive matching grants through DEM’s competitive Local Open Space Grant Program to protect 383 acres across Rhode Island, but Charlestown will not be one of those communities. Since the 2022 election, land conservation has been blocked in Charlestown and no open space grant was submitted to DEM for the 2024 grant round.
The final plan includes an appendix with comments, but missing from the comment collection is an important letter from the Audubon Society of Rhode Island in opposition to the installation of any lighting near the Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge. Also missing is a 2012 letter from the US Fish and Wildlife Service in opposition to lighting in Ninigret Park sent as an attachment with other correspondence. The missing letters both clearly state that there is no lighting that will not impact nesting and migratory birds in the Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge.
Rhode Island’s shortage of housing that is affordable is blamed on decades of insufficient home construction. While that may be true generally for the state, home construction has proceeded apace in Charlestown. Between 1970 and 2020, Rhode Island’s population grew from 946,725 to 1,097,379 – a 15.9% increase in population. In those same decades, Charlestown’s population grew from 2,863 to 7,997 – a 179% increase.
When government officials make decisions that seem to serve a minority interest or that do not seem to serve the interest of the public, it is not unusual for members of the public to assume a corrupt influence. That is an unfortunate distraction because it moves the public’s focus away from what government officials are doing to their often-unknowable motivation for doing it.
Ruth Platner: “I asked Bard to make some images that combined high-speed trains with some of the destruction the new route would create such as the permanent fragmentation of 1,800 acres of permanently protected open space, but Bard refused to create such disturbing images. If these images violate the ethics of a robot, why are they okay to make a reality in Charlestown!?”
There has been a recent assertion that the allowed number of dwelling units on any lot north of Rt.1 in Charlestown could be doubled if conventional septic systems were replaced with nitrogen-reducing systems. However, the limiting nutrient in freshwater systems is phosphorus, not nitrogen, and no existing wastewater treatment system, whether nitrogen-reducing or not, removes phosphorus.
Have you made a resolution to de-clutter your home? Do you have something that you want to get rid of, but can’t bear to send to the landfill, or maybe it isn’t quite valuable enough to deal with the hassle of trying to sell it? Well there’s a Facebook group to answer all these questions and it turns out it does more than just remove clutter, it also helps to build community by creating a “gift economy.”
Between August and November, an estimated 14 million birds pass through South County on their long fall migration. Many of these migrants are young birds who hatched this year and who have never migrated before. Increasing light pollution is decreasing the number of birds that will survive migration, especially first-time migrants.
Having failed to thwart the will of the voters and remove current elected Commissioners from office doesn’t mean that those who want to appoint Planning Commission members who are more to developers’ liking have given up. Now they are challenging the qualifications of all those who have been elected to the Commission.
“It is clear and unambiguous that the General Assembly’s passage of the ratification act and its signature by the Governor made this law a specific statute exempting Charlestown from the general scheme for the composition of a local planning board or commission.” For over 40 years an elected Planning Commission has given a greater, more effective voice to the citizenry.
Rhode Islanders’ rights to the shore are clear, but what has been less clear is where exactly you get to enjoy those rights. Legislation passed on June 15 that provides a measurable line of where public access may be exercised: “where shore exists, on wet or dry sand or rocky beach up to ten feet landward of the high tide line but not where no passable shore exists.”
UPDATE: This week the Rhode Island Legislature did pass this bill that eliminates a public process for many land development projects. We’ll have more about this in the future.
Excluding neighbors and the general public from participation and even knowledge of developments that can change the landscape and character of our community may save developers a little meeting time, but it is not good government or good environmental policy. It is certainly not democratic.
Throughout history the stars have inspired poetry, they connect us to the universe, they are a part of what makes us human, and yet they are dimming in a fog of artificial light. What will we lose if we lose the night in Charlestown, and what will Rhode Island lose if we lose this last beautiful oasis of dark along our Atlantic coast?
Multiple bills proposed in this legislative session claim to be about affordable housing, but all that any of them achieve is an increase in the number of market-rate housing units. Increasing supply might work to lower housing costs in some communities, but it hasn’t worked yet in coastal towns. Charlestown is within 3 hours of over 25 million people. The supply of affluent people willing to pay high prices for homes and short or long-term rentals will consume the increase in housing production.
At the November 14 Charlestown Town Council meeting, the Town Council voted 4 to 0 to release the $400,000.00 grant that the town had received to purchase the Saw Mill Pond Watershed and transfer the grant to the Charlestown Land Trust, which will now pursue additional funding needed to protect the land.
