Actor James Woods sues RI town over house being built on Lake Boone - The Providence Journal

EXETER – Oscar-nominated histrion James Woods, known for his Family Guy cameos and ultra-conservative governmental views, is taking up a caller cause: He is challenging his neighbor’s effort to physique a location astatine the borderline of Boone Lake.

Woods is simply a autochthonal Rhode Islander who graduated from Pilgrim High School successful Warwick. His household has owned spot connected Boone Lake, not acold from the Arcadia Management Area, for decades.

The 75-year-old histrion is suing the Exeter Zoning Board successful authorities Superior Court implicit its support of a variance that would wide the mode for his neighbor, Harry Hawker III, to physique a two-bedroom location connected undeveloped waterfront land.

The onshore has served the Hawker household arsenic an entree constituent to the picturesque water and features a dock and firepit.

In his filing, Woods argues that the committee contravened section zoning rules by granting the variance, and that Hawker failed to amusement that the projected task wouldn’t change the quality of the lakeside community. Woods states, too, that Hawker did not beryllium helium had nary different “reasonable alternative” to bask the .14-acre spot astatine 0 West Shore Drive, which borders the Woods’ household estate. 

In asking the tribunal to reverse the zoning approval, Woods faults the Zoning Board for failing to see the project’s interaction connected surrounding spot values.

His lawyer, Timothy J. Robenhymer, did not instrumentality a telephone telephone seeking comment.

Why Exeter RI says Harry Hawker III tin physique his location connected Boone Lake

In its response, the municipality states Hawker primitively won support for a dimensional variance for a two-bedroom location successful 2011, but fto the support lapse. The spot is simply a pre-existing, non-conforming batch that was created earlier the municipality enacted 2-acre minimum batch size successful that residential zone.

Hawker resubmitted an exertion for the aforesaid plans this year, with nationalist hearings earlier the committee connected April 14, May 12, June 6 and June 15. The committee continued the substance doubly to let measurements to beryllium corrected and erstwhile much erstwhile Robenhymer got COVID, according to tribunal papers.

The committee approved the task connected June 15, noting that it was accordant with neighboring properties and that Hawker had sought to minimize the magnitude of alleviation needed by centering the location connected the property. In granting Hawker relief, the committee observed that the plans were successful keeping with the surrounding properties and “modest” successful size, with a footprint of 950 quadrate feet.

In countering Woods, the committee asks that its support beryllium upheld and Woods’ ailment dismissed, arguing the board’s determination was supported by important grounds and based connected the close ineligible standards.

The committee appropriately determined that Hawker’s hardship was owed to the lot’s unsocial characteristics, namely its tiny size, wrote Steven J. Sypole, connected behalf of the board.

What lodging connected Boone Lake is allowed

“The information that the vicinity astir Boone Lake is comprised of galore similar, tiny tons – successful summation to the information that single-family homes are a usage permitted by close – was capable to fulfill the … criteria that `the requested variance volition not change the wide quality of the surrounding area,’” the committee said.

The committee dismissed Woods’ arguments that Hawker was required to contiguous grounds that the connection wouldn’t change the surrounding area. Nor was the committee required to see the imaginable interaction connected neighboring spot values, Sypole wrote.

“The committee evidently could not contradict Mr. Hawker’s exertion based connected non-existant requirements that were invented by [Mr. Woods],” the committee said.

Hawker, done Sypole, declined to remark connected the suit.

Woods is an Emmy and Golden Globe winner, who was doubly nominated for an Oscar successful the 1990s, archetypal for Oliver Stone's “Salvador” and again for Rob Reiner's  “Ghosts of Mississippi.”