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Division Road Neighborhood

East Greenwich, Rhode Island
Date Ongoing
Size 80 acres; 418 residential units
Client Modern Industries, Inc.

The town of East Greenwich set aside eighty undeveloped acres along Division Road for new housing, in answer to a Rhode Island still short on homes for families and seniors. The default answer to a site like this is an apartment complex. The better answer is a neighborhood.

The plan gathers four hundred eighteen homes into a network of streets, blocks, and greens that hold the rhythm of a small town rather than the form of a development. Single-family houses anchor the quieter lanes. Six-unit manor buildings — neighborly in scale, modest in profile — sit at the next register up. Two thirty-four-unit multifamily buildings hold the most density. The plan moves between these scales the way East Greenwich already does: house, then manor, then something larger, on the same walk.

Diagram of typical secondary street and lot diagram with shared drive between rear lots.
Typical secondary street section diagram.

Twenty-five percent of the homes are deed-restricted as affordable — an integrated mix rather than a separate enclave. Families and seniors who have been underserved by the town’s existing housing stock find homes alongside neighbors at every income level. The numbers satisfy Rhode Island Housing’s requirements. The plan answers a different question: what does it look like for affordability to live next door?

Illustrative site scheme with housing types.

A masterplan, not yet a building. But a masterplan with the bones of a place.

Overall neighborhood aerial drawing