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‘We just want the buffer’: Coventry residents want more trees between themselves and truck business

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‘We just want the buffer’: Coventry residents want more trees between themselves and truck business

Jim Hummel
 |  The Hummel Report

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COVENTRY – Nearly a decade after residents of a Hopkins Hill neighborhood complained about the effects of living next to a truck-repair business, neighbors say the town has still done nothing to help improve their quality of life.

This, despite the finalization of legal action 2½ years ago that was supposed to offer some relief.

The neighbors’ plight was detailed in a Hummel Report investigation, published in the Providence Sunday Journal during the summer of 2018. Since that time, a legal case has worked its way through Superior Court and the state’s Supreme Court.

At the same time, the Town of Coventry has cycled through multiple town managers, building officials and town solicitors, leaving few at Town Hall with institutional memory of what has happened over the years.

And it’s left homeowners on Helen Avenue exasperated, as they say the town has not enforced a court ruling against Ferrara Mechanical Services and its owner, Daniel Ferrara, that at the very least would have restored a thick buffer of trees and bushes he cut down in 2016. The buffer had largely hidden the trucking operation at 225 Hopkins Hill Road.

“Honestly, [Ferrara] doesn’t think the town is a real threat. He keeps pushing them off,” said Cathy Theroux, whose Helen Avenue backyard abuts the business’s driveway, where large trucks are parked and sometimes idling – violating a court order issued years ago.

“[Ferrara’] feeling is he can do whatever the heck he wants no matter what,” said Tyler Albert, whose backyard also runs adjacent to the business. “And nobody is going to tell him differently. That’s his attitude.”

Daniel Parrillo, who became Coventry’s town manager in March 2023, acknowledges he has had to get up to speed on the history of the case but said he has visited Ferrara several times and is working with him to have the buffer restored.

“I’m doing the best I can,” Parrillo told the Hummel Report. “I don’t want to go back to court. I don’t want to spend money on attorneys.”

Through his attorney, Ferrara declined our request for an interview, instead issuing a one-paragraph statement: “The Ferraras are pleased that the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that they could continue to operate their family business and have conducted their family business according to the terms of that decision.”

He did not address the buffer.

Background on the battle over the buffer

The town – at the urging of the neighbors on Helen Avenue and several other nearby homes – filed a Superior Court lawsuit in 2016 saying Ferrara had significantly expanded the business after he purchased it 2008. The suit challenged whether he had “grandfather rights” to conduct state vehicle inspections and repairs.

The tipping point, though, was when Ferrara cut down a thick buffer of trees and bushes required by town ordinance to separate a business zone from residential and then put down asphalt. It had largely hidden what was going on beyond the neighbors’ property lines.

Superior Court Judge Susan E. McGuirl held a three-day bench trial in December 2017, then issued a 21-page decision nine months later, saying the business was a legal nonconforming use and could continue operations. However, she also ordered stipulations that included the ban of trucks parking along the fence adjacent to the neighbors’ backyards and a restriction on idling, among others.

Perhaps the most important order, the neighbors say, is that the judge told Ferrara to restore a 50-foot buffer zone, where possible.

“The buffer zone will be restored with a dense planting of appropriate vegetation or landscaping so as to provide a thick screen between the property and adjacent residential dwellings,” McGuirl judge wrote. “[The business] is ordered to restore the buffer zone in a healthy manner by agreement of the parties.”

The town objected to McGuirl’s ruling that the business could operate and expand at its location, and Coventry appealed her decision to the Rhode Island Supreme Court instead of accepting the decision that would have begun restoration of the buffer.

And that meant everything McGuirl had ordered was put on hold. It took the Supreme Court nearly three years to issue a 10-page decision affirming McGuirl’s original ruling. Two years later, the neighbors say they are in the same situation they’ve been in for nearly a decade.

“My biggest concern was I didn’t want to see what’s going on back there, smell it, the dust, or have 9,000-gallon gas tank trucks up against my fence when my kids want to play outside,” Albert said. “I just want the buffer.”

Theroux added: “We would like to see all six [court orders] done, because that’s the court’s decision. But obviously, the buffer was extremely important to us, because that’s the only way that we can get some peace of mind.”

‘Charlie Brown trees’ or legitimate buffers?

Parrillo, the town manager, said that Ferrara has planted 32 4-foot evergreen bushes along the fence line, with the expectation they will grow in the coming years and provide a solid buffer.

“The [neighbors] want some high shrubs and bushes. We’re trying to get to that point,” Parrillo said.

Albert dismissed the plantings, describing them as “Charlie Brown trees” that would take years to grow higher than his 6-foot fence in the backyard. A section of Albert’s fence blew down last summer during a storm, revealing two of the shrubs. He had no idea they were there.

And drone footage taken by The Hummel Report shows the trees not blocking any of the view the neighbors have of the truck-repair business. The footage shows a line of trees lining the property, but the leaf line is too far above ground to block any of the view of Ferrara’s business.

”He was supposed to replant the buffer, not wait years for it to come back,” Theroux said, adding that she is frustrated that the town has not acted more aggressively on behalf of the neighbors.

Theroux said when she first contacted Parrillo, the manager said he could not find any files about the case at Town Hall.

“I said that’s ridiculous. When the town solicitor leaves, they don’t take the records; they hand them over,” Theroux said. “There were other people in the town involved. This was a lawsuit. You can’t walk away with the records.”

And no one has pictures of the buffer before it was cut down.

Albert said he and the neighbors would like to see a detailed plan about what is going to happen in the spring: what trees will be purchased, a map of where they are planted and when Ferrara anticipates finishing the project.

He said the current bushes he’s planted are inadequate.

“My ask is for a project plan to be developed over the winter, because we can’t plant now, as it’s too late,” said Albert, who works as a project manager.

“I know [Parrillo] has a lot of stuff going on. This town has a lot of issues that he’s dealing with. I get it, but we have four months to get to a position to where we can actually plant something in the ground,” he continued.

The Hummel Report is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that relies, in part, on donations. For more information, go to HummelReport.org. Reach Jim at Jim@HummelReport.org.

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