A North Smithfield man who has lived on Sayles Hill Road for 40 years told the Town Council on Monday that a dumpster serving a state-owned group home next door has sat 15 feet from his property line for years, and that the town's zoning enforcement has stalled for more than six months since it issued a notice of violation.
The account came during open forum at the council's August 3 meeting, according to the North Smithfield Town Council's published meeting recording. The resident read a prepared statement and handed the council a folder that he said contained his documents, emails and photographs. The council president said she would pass it to the town clerk.
No vote was taken on the complaint. The council directed the town administrator to stay in contact with the resident while the town seeks an answer from the state about whether its own dumpster ordinance applies.
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The resident said he and his wife have lived at their Sayles Hill Road address for 40 years. The neighboring property is owned by the State of Rhode Island and used as a group home, he said. A dumpster placed there a few years ago is used for household trash, including food waste, and sits about 40 feet from his deck and next to the part of his yard with a fire pit, picnic table and chairs.
He read the town's dumpster ordinance into the record. It requires a permit from the building zoning official before a dumpster is placed on private property in a residential zone, and allows the dumpster for temporary use by the occupant for no more than 30 days, or for the length of an active building permit.
According to his timeline, he first met with the town's building and zoning official, who told him the state is exempt from the ordinance. He said the official could produce no documentation confirming that exemption. He then consulted a private attorney, who he said advised the opposite.
He filed a complaint with the zoning department on December 2, 2025. A notice of violation was issued December 15, 2025, with a compliance date of January 14, 2026. He cited a section of the zoning code requiring the inspector to notify the complainant of findings or determinations in writing within 14 days.
"I never received said findings or determinations, and the dumpster has not been removed," he said in his prepared remarks. He said he has asked about the status of the complaint many times, in person and by email, and received "excuses and misinformation."
He listed the explanations he said he was given: that the ordinance cannot be enforced because the state has a private trash-collection contract; and that state property does not qualify for town trash pickup. He said the town collected trash curbside at that address for nearly 40 years before the dumpster arrived, and that the property currently uses a town-issued recycling bin.
Most recently, he said, the zoning official offered to let the dumpster stay if it were placed on a concrete pad and enclosed by a fence — an outcome he argued the ordinance does not permit, because it allows dumpsters in residential zones only temporarily and for construction.
He said he then wrote to the town administrator, citing the section of the Home Rule Charter directing the administrator to enforce or cause to be enforced the town's laws and ordinances. He said he received no reply.
The town's answer, and where it conflicts
The town administrator told the council he has relied on the zoning officer's ruling, made in consultation with the town planner, that the ordinance applies to construction and not to this use. He then pointed to a state law, Rhode Island General Laws § 45-24-31, which he said waives local zoning requirements for community residences.
"So, we're not sure what applies here," he said, adding that the public works director has asked the state for clarification and that the state's first response was, in his words, "a lot of gibberish." He said he sent the state an email citing the statute the previous Thursday asking directly whether the town has authority, and had not received a response.
The administrator said the town has six such residences. Five use dumpsters, he said, and one uses commercial-grade trash bins picked up under a state contract with the same vendor the town uses, at no cost to the town. He said the state owns this facility but licenses it to an operator, and that the town has asked the state whether it requires its facilities to use dumpster service. "They couldn't answer the question," he said.
A councilor pushed for a simpler path, asking whether the town could offer to swap the dumpster for two town barrels regardless of who has the legal right. "Who cares if they have the right to do it or not?" the councilor said, framing it as being a good neighbor. The administrator agreed the town can ask, but said he wants to establish where the town stands legally first.
The town solicitor offered a separate legal caution: the Home Rule Charter governs the form of government, and where the state exercises jurisdiction through legislation, state law supersedes local ordinances.
The resident said the council meeting was the first time he had heard that any of this work was underway. The administrator apologized, and said the issue was escalated "in the past 10 days," in part because he knew the resident was coming to the meeting and would not pay an appeal fee.
That prompted the sharpest factual conflict of the exchange. The resident said he was initially told there would be a $450 fee to appeal to the Zoning Board, then told there was no fee in his case because the zoning official never issued a written determination. He filed the appeal. A month later, he said, he was told there was a $450 fee after all, plus costs for advertising and notifying neighbors.
"So, which is it? I'm getting different stories here," he said.
The administrator said he had checked with the building and zoning officer after a call from the resident and was told there was an appeal fee. He said he had not previously heard that a town employee told the resident otherwise. He also said he tries to keep distance from the zoning officer's regulatory decisions to avoid politicizing them.
Odor, rodents and a changed pickup schedule
A second resident from the same household told the council that other group homes with dumpsters are, to her understanding, not 15 feet from an abutting property. She said family visiting from Georgia this summer could not sit in the yard because of the smell, and that the dumpster is now emptied every four weeks rather than weekly. She said she is concerned about rodents, though she has not seen any.
A councilor said a state contract should call for weekly pickup. The first resident said the dumpster was emptied every Thursday morning between roughly 6:30 and 6:45 a.m. for several years, which he said is not a legal hour for collection, and that after he filed his December complaint the pickups dropped to monthly. "So, that gives more time for the smell to ferment," he said.
Another councilor said she had visited the property, but on a day the dumpster had just been emptied.
What happens next
The council president asked the administrator and the resident to stay in contact, and the administrator agreed, saying he would provide his personal cell phone number and keep the resident informed. He said the public works director remains frustrated by the lack of clarity from the state and is still working on it, and that the town will not wait indefinitely for an answer before approaching the group home's operator about alternatives.
No deadline was set in the recording for the state to respond, and no date was given for a decision on whether the appeal fee applies. The resident's appeal to the Zoning Board of Review remains unresolved on the record.
"I think the ordinance is clear. It's unambiguous," he told the council. "We shouldn't have to live next to a garbage dump."
The Town Council's next regular meeting is the venue for any further action; residents can request the meeting recording and the materials submitted to the clerk through the town.