Municipal Technical Assistance Program: Templates and Resources

In 2025, the General Assembly adopted new requirements or amended existing requirements through seven bills, which made changes to various aspects of zoning, planning, and permitting statutes for the purposes of standardizing and streamlining the development process and otherwise reducing barriers to housing development. Those bills that resulted in amendments to existing templates, or the creation of new templates, are described briefly in the text below, along with their effective dates, and can be accessed by clicking on the hyperlinks provided in blue. New bills that affect zoning, planning and permitting statutes are described briefly below, along with a more detailed summary in the Bills Summaries 2025 document.

• H 5794Baa/ S1086Aaa: Amends provisions of the Zoning Enabling Act of 1991 and the Development Review Act related to the powers and duties of local planning boards and commissions, subdivision and land development review procedures, certification of completeness, public notice, appeals, and administrative approvals. Effective June 27, 2025.
• H 5795A/ S 1084: Amends provisions of the Zoning Enabling Act of 1991 related to the administration and enforcement of zoning ordinances by local officials or agencies, including the issuance of zoning certificates and appeal rights. Effective upon passage (June 2025).
• H 5796/ S 1092: Amends provisions of the Zoning Enabling Act of 1991 to add an additional required purpose to the list of standard provisions that a zoning ordinance must address through reasonable objective standards and criteria. Effective January 1, 2026.
• H 5797 (Substitute A)/ S 1085: Amends multiple provisions of the Zoning Enabling Act of 1991 to add new definitions, expand permitted residential uses, authorize co-living housing and require zoning ordinances to allow certain residential uses through specific and objective standards. Effective January 1, 2026.
• H 5798/ S 1083: Amends provisions of the Zoning Enabling Act of 1991 to require zoning ordinances to allow attached single-family dwellings in designated zoning districts and to establish minimum statewide standards governing dimensional requirements, lot configuration, and development capacity for such dwellings. Effective January 1, 2026.
• H 5800/ S 1090: Amends provisions of the Zoning Enabling Act of 1991 to require zoning ordinances to provide for residential development within all or some of the areas encompassing commercial zoning districts through objective standards and criteria, including mixed-use and medium- to high-density residential development. Effective January 1, 2026.
• H 5801/ S 1088: Amends multiple provisions of the Low- and Moderate-Income Housing Act to revise definitions, clarify and expand comprehensive permit procedures, establish minimum zoning incentives and density bonuses, refine standards for local review board findings, and modify vesting, review timelines, and administrative approval processes for affordable housing developments. Effective upon passage (June 2025) and January 1, 2026. This was a two part bill with two effective dates.

Bill Summaries

The Bill Summaries document provides an overview of each of the bills that resulted in required changes to various statutes, as well as providing summaries for those bills that will impact municipalities but may not have requirements for local integration into the regulatory framework. The bill numbers, effective date, brief bill summary, and key changes are outlined for each bill. It is noted in the first line of each table if the bill generated and update to an existing template, a new template, or no template was needed.

• 2025 Bill Summaries
• 2024 Bill Summaries
• 2023 Bill Summaries
• Informational Video: How Roles Have Changed

Legislative Language Summary Table

View table here >

Several of the bills have sections of the local regulatory framework that will need to be cut and pasted from state law. These tables attempt to provide those instances where no tailoring of the enabling language is needed prior to adopting the language into the local regulatory framework. These tables are designed to be used in conjunction with the associated templates. Language that required adjustment for insertion into the local regulatory framework is contained in the associated templates, along with the language for direct insertion. The legislative language summary tables should not be used without the associated templates that are identified in the light orange boxes within and at the end of each table.

Best Practices and Examples

As part of the development of the regulatory templates, research was conducted to look at best practices and examples both nationwide and locally. This provided examples of how municipalities are already addressing similar issues. As part of the guidance provided to municipalities, there are best practices and example resources for subdivision, zoning, inclusionary zoning, comprehensive permits, adaptive reuse and accessory dwelling units. These best practices and examples should be used as a resource to learn more about a topic area. Any information gathered from them should only be used in consultation with a municipality’s solicitor to ensure that the information is utilized in a manner consistent with Rhode Island General Law.

Model Regulatory Templates

Included in the guidance documents are templates of model regulatory text, which are intended to be adapted and tailored by the municipalities into their local enforceable policy as appropriate. The templates are color coded and annotated to simplify their use as follows:

• Template language in red is either directly from state law or has been adapted directly from state law for insertion into the local regulatory framework and should not be altered.
  In the case of templates that have been modified from a previous year, text in black should be considered as existing text, modified by either deleting (through strikethrough) or adding new required text (in red).
• Footnotes are used to reference sections of general law or call the reader’s attention to specific and important information. In updated templates from 2023 or 2024, footnotes will indicate where previously existing inconsistencies have now been corrected in the 2025 legislation. These templates should not be used without direct consultation of all of the associated footnotes.
• All footnoted references refer to the amended legislation that was approved during the 2025 General Assembly. Some footnotes from the 2023 and 2024 session remain, as not all inconsistencies were addressed in the 2025 legislation.
• In some cases, an inconsistency was identified in the general law during the process of drafting the templates. The templates use black text, within sections of red text, and a footnote, to identify sections where it was likely intended for language to be inserted or represented differently, but without a change to the enabling legislation, the text represented in black could be interpreted to be inconsistent with state law. In most of these circumstances the use of the exact text from the enabling legislation would be incorrect or inconsistent. In all of these cases, municipalities should consult with their solicitor for specific guidance.
• In some cases, the templates include bracketed text. Bracketed text signals the need for a municipality to provide the proper name of a local body, such as the planning board, or to add in a reference to a local regulatory section number or name. It should be noted that using internal references to specific sections of an ordinance or regulation are not required. These are provided as placeholders. A general reference to the source document can be made, or specific sections of state law can be used for reference if the municipality does not want to cite specific sections of local code. Some templates include internal references, that are bracketed, to sections within the model. These are represented with the model template section numbers and will need to be updated with local section references once drafted for insertion into the local regulatory framework.
• The regulatory templates have been drafted to represent the minimum requirements necessary to update the land development regulations and zoning ordinance for compliance with the changes to the enabling legislation. Each municipality may have a different approach and organizational style to the regulatory documents. The templates can be used in whole, or in part, with the understanding that the language represented in red is required for compliance. Municipalities will need to determine where these current sections exist in their regulatory documents and determine how best to use the model template to amend each relevant section. There are policy considerations that need to be addressed in some circumstances. The templates attempt to identify these sections through footnotes and bracketed text where the municipality can make a determination about a certain provision. An example of this is deciding who the permitting authority is for minor final subdivisions and land development applications. The law provides that either the administrative officer or the technical review committee can be the permitting authority in this instance. When using such language from the template, the municipality will need to make a policy determination and draft their tailored language accordingly.
• The templates should only be used in consultation with a municipality’s solicitor to ensure that the tailored and directly inserted language is used appropriately and in the correct location within each regulatory framework. These regulatory templates are not intended to be used as a direct cut and paste in all circumstances and municipal solicitors should be carefully consulted as to how the local regulations and ordinances are amended.