With Routes 95 and 295, the state’s major airport and soon a railroad station, Warwick is a transportation hub for the state. But how should this concentration of activity impact land uses and what sort of development does the city want, and where as it moves forward?

Those are key questions to be addressed as the city prepares to update its comprehensive community plan, a plan that according to state regulations should have been updated two years ago.

Yesterday the office of Mayor Scott Avedisian announced the city has been awarded an $85,000 matching challenge grant from the Statewide Planning Program to update the plan. The money will come from the Federal Highway Administration with the city’s share including some in-kind services and cash balance spread over two fiscal years. The overall program is projected to take 18 months, said City Planner Mark Carruolo.

Carruolo sees the program coming at an opportune time.

“Airport expansion issues are still unresolved,” he said. However, the environmental impact statement (EIS) of the proposed extension of Runway 5-23 to 8,700 feet and extension of safety areas on the shorter Runway 16-34 is underway, albeit delayed from its earlier schedule for a final draft by the first of the year because of a reduction in air traffic forecasts.

In a Sept. 30 letter of support of the city’s grant application, Rhode Island Airport Corporation President and CEO Kevin Dillon said the agency “welcomes” the opportunity to work with the city to develop a new comprehensive plan “that will provide for compatible land uses surrounding the airport.”

He notes that much of the property by the airport is zoned residential, which “severely restricts potential reuse options as residential use is not an FAA compatible re-use of the lands from a noise impact standpoint.”

“This funding is vitally important to our efforts to update the plan, which we have always recognized is an important guideline for Rhode Island’s second largest city,” Avedisian said in a statement.

More than one plan is on the drawing boards.

Carruolo is looking to coordinate the comprehensive plan with a master plan for the intermodal district of about 70 acres across Post Road from Green Airport. The city has received a bid from the Boston engineering/planning firm of Goody Clancy to complete the plan it started several years ago. The intent is for the city to adopt a plan that would result in the dissolution of the Warwick Station Redevelopment Agency and its agreement with the Bullfinch Companies of Needham, Mass., to amass properties within the district and market them for redevelopment. Since entering the agreement with Bullfinch more than nine years ago, the firm has not come up with a single project, although outside of the zone developer Joseph Piscopio has built the Hilton Garden Hotel and Michael D’Ambra is moving ahead with the design of a $300 million project consisting of 500,000 square feet of office space and a hotel on about 8 acres on Jefferson Boulevard.

Under state law, the city’s comprehensive master plan is to be updated every five years. The existing plan was formally approved by the R.I. Department of Administration in October 2002, so it should have undergone revisions as of 2007. However, that didn’t occur because of financial constraints and at the urging of Ward 9 Councilman Steve Merolla, the city sought outside funding to assist with the project. The City Council unanimously approved a resolution in September in support of the city’s application.

In addition to RIAC and the council, the Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce and the state Economic Development Corporation supported the application.

In a Sept. 15 letter to Statewide Planning, J. Michael Saul, interim EDC director, writes that the comprehensive plan will be key to “managing the exciting economic development opportunities” that will come out of the proposed airport expansion and construction of the Intermodal Facility.

He goes on to write that the city’s “central location in Rhode Island as well as the easy access for air travel, has made the city a prime area for further industrial, commercial and population growth.”

The comprehensive plan serves as a guideline to development and land use. It takes into consideration city services such as water and sewers, environmental features and economic issues, Carruolo said. It requires City Council and R.I. Department of Administration approval.

The plan can be amended as many as three times during a year, although this is not likely to happen, said Carruolo. He cited an increasing number of rezoning requests coming before the council, as evidence that the current plan needs updating.

He said the city “tries to adhere to the plan as much as practicable until it is updated.”