For the past 27 years, Scott Wolf has served as executive director of Grow Smart RI. The nonprofit think tank plays a critical role in helping to develop creative policy solutions to a number of challenging issues, including housing, transportation and downtown development.
Wolf is stepping down at the end of the year. He joined Ocean State Media morning host Luis Hernandez to reflect on his tenure with Grow Smart RI, and to preview the organization’s Power of Place Summit, kicking off Friday at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Interview highlights
On the initiative he’s most proud of supporting during his tenure at Grow Smart RI
Scott Wolf: First among equals is the state historic tax credit, which we played a lead role in getting established and have promoted and defended and seen it through excellent times and some more challenging times. The reason why I think that’s the most significant initiative during my tenure is its on the ground impact throughout Rhode Island. It has facilitated the rehabilitation of 324 vacant or underutilized historic buildings throughout Rhode Island. And those rehab projects are bringing new life, new jobs, new housing to many downtowns and main streets in Rhode Island (and) represent an investment in the state, cumulatively, of $2 billion. So that is incredible impact. I think it’s the best community and economic development tool Rhode Island has seen in a quarter century.
On the lack of improvements to the state’s public transportation system in recent years
Wolf: It’s a source of much frustration. The positive thing I think we’ve accomplished is getting us a well-vetted, robust, long-term plan to dramatically improve transit service established as a blueprint. Obviously, more than half the battle is implementing the blueprint and we haven’t seen much action on that. I think that the fact that not many Rhode Islanders currently use transit reduces the political imperative that leaders feel to fund that system more adequately. They’re not looking much at the potential of transit, a better funded system with more frequency, more duration. They’re just looking at it as a status quo thing that’s more of an obligation than an opportunity. And we think it’s an incredible housing, economic development, economic mobility opportunity if funded appropriately.
It’s a chicken and egg problem because one of the main reasons why more people aren’t using (RIPTA service) is that it’s not convenient for people who have a choice. In most cases, there are a few routes where it’s as quick as auto travel, but in the vast majority of routes, traveling by car is quicker. That’s due to a number of reasons, including the lack of frequency of service, the lack of duration of service and not much service at night or on the weekends. And the antidote to that is largely funding. So if we don’t have more funding to make the system a more viable option for more people, we’re going to continue to have this very suboptimal transportation situation.
On Grow Smart RI’s priorities
Wolf: We need to continue to forge ahead with creative approaches to what I would call “location efficient housing development;” to make it imperative that communities allow more housing in places where infrastructure and services exist. (Former Rhode Island House Speaker) Shekarchi and others have championed that approach, and it’s starting to pay off with the increased number of housing permits in the state during the last year.
I think another thing that we need to be looking at as a state is the fact that we’re projected to have a population decline over the next several decades. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion, but I think if we don’t change our attitude about housing and change our attitudes about transit, those sobering predictions may come to pass.
What I’m most concerned about regarding the population projections I see is not the aggregate prediction of decline, but the prediction that our urban and town centers are going to have a decline. I think it’s important that we have population growth in the areas that can best accommodate it. If that growth is happening in areas that can’t accommodate it, then that’s kind of a classic sprawl scenario that we’ve been fighting against for 28 years with some success. If we want to attract and retain young talent, we need a better transit system because we’re competing for those people with other jurisdictions that offer a much better transit system.
