North Smithfield Planning Board · Continued Public Hearing
After four public hearings, Thursday is decision night — and public comment is still open.
Rankin Estates is a proposed 126-home subdivision on 270 acres of forest off Route 7 (Douglas Pike), built in 10 phases over 10+ years, with roughly 750,000 cubic yards of earth excavated and 400,000 trucked off-site.
Thursday the Planning Board decides the preliminary plan — the last stage that gets a public hearing. The stage after it is administrative.
Almost every figure below is the applicant’s own. Nothing here is an estimate by neighbors.
Earth to be excavated — 400,000 cubic yards of it trucked off the site entirely.
Their document Applicant’s counsel, letter of May 12, 2026What 400,000 cubic yards actually means on the road, calculated by the professional engineer this community hired.
“A typical 10 wheel truck holds 10 cubic yards of material. That means at least 40,000 10-wheel trucks will be leaving this site.” Alisa Richardson, PE — signed letter to RI DEM, July 15, 2026Our engineer Filed into the state wetlands record; funded by neighbors’ donations
Every one of those loads leaves through a single driveway onto Route 7 / Douglas Pike — the same road you commute on and the school buses run.
Their document Site layout, preliminary plan setHow long the construction runs. The Town Planner estimated a ten-year buildout at the April 9 hearing; the applicant’s own attorney then agreed on the record the same evening, describing the project as “phased out over 10 years.”
Town record April 9, 2026 Planning Board hearing — video on the Town’s channelDepth of the deepest cut into the hillside on the main road — about six stories straight down.
Their document Plan-and-profile sheets, preliminary plan setMorning delay at Douglas Pike & Farnum Pike — today versus with this project built. Their own traffic engineer’s numbers.
Their document Applicant’s traffic study, June 19, 2026Net cost to the Town every year — the developer’s own fiscal consultant’s revised finding. Their first version claimed a gain; three weeks later it was a loss.
Their document Applicant’s fiscal impact study, revised April 24, 2026Placed above groundwater the state classifies as drinking-water quality — the aquifer that feeds neighborhood wells.
Their document Preliminary plan set & stormwater reportThe Board’s agenda carries 21 proposed conditions. Not one of them addresses blasting, vibration monitoring, or testing your well before work starts — while the applicant’s own June 19 memo says blasting “may be necessary.”
Town record August 27, 2026 Planning Board agendaAlready on this property. In September 2024, RI DEM’s review of the applicant’s wetlands application found clearing intruding 75 to 100 feet into a protected buffer — “the result of which is a violation.” That wetlands application is still pending, and the restoration plan has not been approved.
State record RI DEM review — Freshwater Wetlands application 24-0155A 40-page report by North Smithfield residents — filed with the Board on July 16 and still unanswered — documents problems across the whole application, not just traffic:
Process. The completeness certification the law requires before hearings begin was issued only after four hearings — retroactively, at the applicant’s request. Nine of nine required agency-comment slots in the Town’s own checklist: blank.
Access & safety. The main intersection already fails and gets worse on their own numbers; the corridor’s highest-crash location was left out of their study’s capacity tables; the second access road the 2019 Master Plan requires is missing — the state’s wetlands reviewers say a single-access plan fails their own rule — and the emergency exit rides on a “paper street” whose legal status the Board’s own Solicitor was asked about and never answered.
Environment. Rare-species habitat unsurveyed. A potential vernal pool unconfirmed. Stormwater discharging toward a cold-water brook without the 200-foot showing the ordinance requires. Blasting conceded as possibly necessary, with no assessment at all.
Water & septic. No water-availability study for 126 new wells (roughly 58,000 gallons a day), and the septic math depends on a legal instrument that is unexecuted and unrecorded.
Conditions & the record. Of the 10 conditions the 2019 Master Plan approval imposed, only one is cleanly met. Required preservation-office sign-off on the archaeological survey is not documented. And the applicant’s own filings disagree with each other on basic facts — lot counts, bedroom counts, earth quantities.
On the record alongside residents: an environmental scientist, two professional engineers, a certified safety professional, a resident attorney, and signed joinders from owners of neighboring properties — including on both streets carrying the plan’s gated emergency connections.
The professional engineer’s review quoted on this page was paid for by neighbors — no organization, no outside money. The cost is $2,200, and the fund is not fully covered yet.
If the numbers on this page were useful to you, you can chip in any amount at ns-rankinfund.cheddarup.com.
An interactive 3D model of the cut, the fill and the 400,000 cubic yards — built from the applicant’s own plan sheets and public LiDAR — is at rankin-estates-review.netlify.app.
The residents’ full report, with the engineering and traffic analysis behind the numbers above, was filed with the Board on July 16, 2026 and remains unanswered.