Strategic Plan, 2021 to 2024

To lead and engage Rhode Islanders in advancing neighborhood revitalization, environmental stewardship, and economic opportunity for all.

Rhode Island will be a national model for smart growth and inclusive, informed decision making: a place where every person benefits from flourishing neighborhoods and downtowns, restored and protected natural resources, and a just, thriving, and resilient economy.

Inclusive — We believe that equitable, systemic change happens only when many diverse people are included in decision making. We listen to, work with, and advocate for all people, seeking and finding common ground.

Optimistic — We believe Rhode Island has a bright future with still-untapped potential.

Visionary — We are committed to big-picture, long-term thinking and to bringing fresh perspectives to supposedly intractable problems.

Practical — We advance concrete, specific solutions to our state’s most complicated and stubborn economic, environmental, and community development challenges.

Trustworthy — Our work is fact-based—informed by research and expertise as well as the everyday, lived experience of people in our communities.

We will advance our mission and target accomplishments by focusing on these primary, “lever” strategies:

• Deepen our connections with organizations, leaders, and activists in underserved neighborhoods.
• Strengthen our organizational structure and internal capabilities.
• Maximize our engagement with our local, statewide, regional, and national stakeholders—planning professionals, elected officials, partner organizations—and work to strengthen connections and relationships among them.

The “verticals.” GSRI’s ideal long-term operating state, encompassing the range of support needed to achieve the vision and target accomplishments. Each of the target accomplishments (next page) will require strength in some or all of these; each accomplishment will be analyzed regularly to determine which capacities are most needed to achieve it. Each of the capacities below includes a broad goal and is accompanied by a roadmap that includes measurable objectives and strategies.

1. Research and analysis

We will generate, integrate, apply, and share research and new knowledge and serve as a trusted resource for relevant data and insight.

2. Policy development

We will continue producing smart growth policy proposals and reforms for Rhode Island that integrate and optimize economic and community revitalization, housing, transportation, and natural resource conservation.

3. Thought leadership and advocacy

We will apply our experience and knowledge to foster a critical mass of support for smart growth practices and other policy ideas and reforms that improve the economic, environmental, and social wellbeing of all residents.

4. Convening and collaboration

We will build, convene, and support extensive public- and private-sector networks and partnerships to advance the benefits of smart growth.

5. Public visibility and awareness

We will enhance awareness and knowledge of smart growth principles and GSRI’s activities and accomplishments among opinion leaders, decision makers, our community partners, and the general public.

6. Organizational infrastructure and sustainability

We will have the organizational structure, governance, operations, and funding necessary to ensure our sustainability and help us achieve our mission.

The big wins that GSRI is going for over the next 3-5 years; tangible, ambitious, outward-facing accomplishments that will cement our leadership role and reputation in Rhode Island and the region as we move to achieve them. “Horizontals.” An ongoing, updated action plan for each, with a progress report, will be shared regularly with the board. Each of the three major target areas below opens with a broad goal, followed by three or four specific objectives.

GSRI is committed to sustainable growth and economic development. Acknowledging three central, urgent issues of our time—climate change; social, racial, and economic justice; and post-Covid restructuring/recovery—our primary agenda for the near future includes:

1. Revitalize Main Streets and Downtowns

Economic development will be concentrated in areas with established, mixed-use centers that are revitalized and connected through good jobs, high-quality and affordable transportation and housing options across income levels, and updated infrastructure.

1. Capitalize the State Municipal Infrastructure Grant program to catalyze local economic and community revitalization.
2. Further recapitalize the State Historic Tax Credit Program.
3. Achieve passage of laws and incentives for multi-family housing development and population increase in smart growth locations throughout RI, e.g., the RI version of 40R and 40S programs; expansion of super-TIF to more locations.

2. Expand and enhance transportation choices 

Expanded multi-modal and active transportation choices, including a robust public transit system and transit-oriented development (TOD), will support the revitalization of dense, mixed-use, urban and town centers by moving people and goods more efficiently, reducing congestion, and allowing more compact residential and commercial development.

1. Achieve a community-driven alternative to the RIDOT multi-hub proposal for a primary transit hub in Downtown Providence.
2. Hold agencies accountable for committing to early-action investments (1-4 years) in the Transit Master Plan.
3. Double state funding to support bike/ped infrastructure in the state Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP).
4. Strengthen the statewide Complete Streets law and gain adoption of Complete Streets ordinances and/or policies in at least five additional communities.

3. Reform land-use and economic development policies and practices

The State and municipalities will implement sustainable growth and economic development policies and projects that preserve and capitalize on our built and natural assets.

1. Ensure the establishment of a Land Use Reform Commission that embeds smart growth principles in an improved land-use regulatory system.
2. Lead statewide zoning reform to support more options for multi-family, mixed-use, and mass-transit-oriented development; build more local capacity to adopt and implement such reforms.
3. Reform Rhode Island’s solar siting incentives to increase the value and utility of locating major solar projects on already developed and disturbed land, and to prevent further destruction of forest and farmlands.
4. Support implementation of the Forest Conservation Act and the work of its commission, and encourage municipalities to adopt related policies and ordinances.

The key environmental trends and factors that need to be considered in setting GSRI’s course (revisited and updated annually)

Environmental

• Climate crisis

Societal, cultural, and demographic

• Increasing social and economic inequality
• More widespread awareness of systemic racism and injustice
• Political and cultural polarization
• Increasing racial and ethnic diversity; smaller households; international immigration; greying population
• Continuing housing shortage and affordability crisis; opportunity and need for development of new multifamily, affordable housing and transit-oriented development
• Increase in localism, e.g., local food movement, and efforts to build community-based networks and infrastructure

Places and mobility

• Changes in how people view and connect with places where they live, work, and travel.
• Increased emphasis on the role and value of neighborhoods and walkability
• Uncertainty about future demand for traditional transit and its role in broader transportation systems
• Traditional offices contracting and relocating; potential conversion of central business districts into amenity-rich residential neighborhoods
• High vacancy rates in suburban malls and commercial corridors (“greyfields”)
• Decoupling of community and place caused by new social and work technologies, and subsequent shifts in population and density.
• Possible long-term shifts in travel and tourism

Technological

• Emergence of disruptive technologies (AI, smart cities, multi-modal transportation, process automation, big data, digital worlds, integrated customer data platforms, telecommunication speed, controlled-environment agriculture, augmented reality, autonomous driving systems, cybersecurity)
  • Ramifications for how and where people work, live, and play
  • Ramifications for urban revitalization

Economic and political

• • Changing landscape of funding: possibly less available for advocacy, more for direct services; foundations’ priorities shifting to concrete, measurable outcomes, impact investing, social change/equity
  • American Rescue Plan allocation of $1.3 billion to Rhode Island ($1,000 per capita)
  • Major 2022 Gubernatorial Election and possible new Governor in 2023
  • Continuing shifts in national and local political landscape: current progressive trend in Rhode Island; rise in political extremism; national conservative pendulum swing