Extension to the Harbor Walk along Newport's waterfront halted by Zoning Board
NEWPORT — While Newport Restaurant Group received the O.K. to beautify the parking lot in front of The Mooring from the Zoning Board, they will no longer have to comply with the Planning Board’s request for them to extend the Harbor Walk as well.
Newport Restaurant Group, which owns The Mooring and The Smoke House cafe in front of it, applied for a special use permit to create a permanent outdoor patio and to beautify the existing parking lot in August 2021. The new deck would replace the temporary outdoor dining patio Smoke House constructed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the parking lot plan would add plants and some pedestrian walkways around the deck and parking lot.
In addition to servicing both The Mooring and Smoke House, the parking lot is also used as the main event area for the Newport International Boat Show.
When the Planning Board approved the project in November, it added the condition that the applicant create an extension of the Harbor Walk through the property. The public trail is meant to follow along the edge of Newport Harbor but currently has several points where it bends around private property making it non-contiguous and harder to follow. Planning Board chair Jeff Brooks said the project could be an opportunity for the city to even out one of the bumps in the trail.
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The developers, however, asked the Zoning Board to remove that condition from their permit.
“From our perspective, we think the enhancements we’re going to create are going to promote pedestrian movement across the lot, it’s just the introduction of a deeded or licensed easement across the lot which give us concern,” Sam Bradner, a real estate advisor who works with the development group, told the Zoning Board on Monday.
Chair Samuel Goldblatt said the Zoning Board did not have a record of the decision from the Planning Board and asked Attorney J. Russel Jackson to summarize the Planning Board’s reasoning for the condition. After hearing Jackson’s account and asking whether the project impeded public access to Scott’s Wharf, the closest waterfront access point, Goldblatt and the Board determined the condition was not needed and removed it from their permit approval.
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“I am concerned, as we all are, about Harbor Walk access and access to the waterfront, but those decisions should be made on complete record and with careful consideration with all interested parties and not made at the end of a meeting without substantial discussion and taking of testimony,” Goldblatt said. “While I completely favor deeded access to the harbor walk and feel that is important to the public, I don’t feel that imposing it on this application in this matter is the proper way for the public to address that.”
The application is now headed back to the Planning Board, as that board has final say over whether a project has passed its Development Plan Review.
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Harbor Walk extension in Newport halted by Zoning Board
