Background
In 1990, the Town of Hopkinton, Rhode Island amended its zoning ordinance to create a “mixed-use planned development” designation within the Commercial Zone, and simultaneously rezoned a collection of parcels known as the Brae Bern parcels to that designation for a proposed hotel-and-resort project. The rezoning approval included express restrictions limiting development to one hotel and conference center (200 rooms combined), one country club, 165 residential units, and one 18-hole golf course. The resort project was abandoned shortly after, but the rezoning stayed in place. A 1994 zoning amendment reclassified the parcels into a new “Commercial Special” zone while preserving all prior use limitations and restrictions by express incorporation.
Between 2011 and 2019, town officials — including an assistant town solicitor, a zoning official, and ultimately the town solicitors in a 2020 confidential opinion — issued a series of interpretations concluding that the Commercial Special designation permitted all current commercial uses, including photovoltaic solar energy systems (PSES) added as a permitted commercial use in 2014 or 2016. Relying on those interpretations and earlier approvals of solar projects on adjacent Brae Bern parcels, developer RI-95, LLC obtained a zoning certificate in December 2019 confirming solar was a permitted use and applied to the Planning Board for master plan approval of the Stone Ridge solar project.
Neighboring property owners Thomas and Cynthia Sculco, whose land abuts the project, objected throughout the Planning Board proceedings — including raising a bias/recusal challenge to a board member who had publicly characterized them on Facebook as having a developer’s “agenda.” The Planning Board approved RI-95’s master plan in July 2021, invoking equitable estoppel as an independent basis for its decision. The Zoning Board of Review unanimously upheld that approval, and the Sculcos appealed to the Superior Court, which reversed, holding that solar was not a permitted use on the Brae Bern parcels, that the Planning Board lacked authority to apply equitable estoppel, and that the Zoning Board erred in not correcting those errors. RI-95 then petitioned the Rhode Island Supreme Court for certiorari.
The Court’s Holding
The Rhode Island Supreme Court granted RI-95’s petition for certiorari and heard oral argument. After considering the parties’ written and oral submissions, the Court concluded that cause had been shown — meaning the issues raised are not amenable to summary disposition in RI-95’s favor — and ordered the case assigned to the regular calendar for full briefing and argument. The Court did not resolve the merits at this stage.
In directing full briefing, the Court specifically instructed the parties to address two issues: (1) the legal significance of the word “combining” in the first sentence of the 1990 zoning amendment, and (2) the impact of G.L. 1956 § 45-24-4.1 — a since-repealed statute that was in effect when the 1990 amendment was enacted — on the amendment’s meaning. The parties were permitted to address any additional issues they deem appropriate.
Key Takeaways
- The Supreme Court’s denial of summary disposition leaves the Superior Court’s pro-Sculco judgment intact for now; RI-95’s Stone Ridge solar project remains blocked pending full merits review.
- The Court has flagged two specific textual and statutory questions that will drive the merits briefing: whether the word “combining” in the 1990 amendment limits the mixed-use designation to projects that actually combine multiple listed uses, and whether a repealed Rhode Island zoning statute shapes how that amendment must be read.
- The equitable estoppel question — whether a series of favorable municipal interpretations and zoning certificates can bind a town to permit a use otherwise prohibited by its ordinance — will also be fully briefed; the Superior Court had held that estoppel in the land use context requires at minimum an issued building permit and substantial expenditure in reliance.
- The recusal issue involving the Planning Board member’s social media comment was not reached by the Superior Court and remains unresolved.
Why It Matters
This case presents significant unresolved questions for Rhode Island zoning law on two fronts. First, it will test the interpretive limits of restrictive rezoning conditions: whether a 1990 approval capping uses at a hotel, country club, housing, and golf course bars a category of development — large-scale solar — that did not exist as a commercial use at the time. Second, it will require the Court to define the scope of equitable estoppel in the land use permitting context, specifically whether informal municipal opinions and zoning certificates (short of a building permit) can estop a town from enforcing its own ordinance against a developer who relied on them.
For practitioners, the case is a reminder that a decades-old rezoning with express use restrictions may carry far more legal force than subsequent administrative interpretations suggest — and that developers who rely on informal official assurances rather than formally issued permits do so at their peril until the Rhode Island Supreme Court settles the question.