By RUSS OLIVO

WOONSOCKET — Opponents of a new drugstore that hometown pharmacy giant CVS/Caremark wants to build at Chipman’s Corner are gearing up for a protracted legal battle as they get their first chance to speak publicly against the proposal at a hearing in City Hall Tuesday night.

Ed Tupper of 26 Dana St., their spokesman, said he represents a growing band of abutters who are opposed to the proposed development at the corner of Mendon Road and Cass Avenue. He said they have begun erecting “Stop CVS” and “Stop Kay’s Expansion” signs on their property, circulating anti-CVS petitions and are in the process of hiring a lawyer.
The “Stop Kay’s Expansion” signs are a reference to Kay’s Restaurant, a fixture in Chipman’s Corner for years. David Lahousse, the proprietor of the restaurant, owns three of the six parcels CVS wants to buy at the corner and merge to form a parcel big enough for the proposed 12,900-square-foot store. He is also a Democratic candidate for state representative from District 51.
Although Lahousse denies it, opponents blame him for spearheading the project, portraying him as the developer.
The Planning Board is hosting a forum on the proposal Tuesday at 7 p.m. in City Hall. Technically, the panel is considering two narrow issues — whether to approve a general conceptual plan for the new store, and whether the city should amend the Comprehensive Plan, a blueprint for city zoning, to pave the way for the project.
“I have huge opposition in numerous ways,” said Tupper. “I moved into a residential neighborhood, not a commercial zone.”
Chipman’s Corner is a neighborhood marked by a mix of residences and low-intensity commercial interests, where some homeowners already complain of dangerous traffic conditions. Tupper and other opponents say a CVS could tip the precarious balance of the neighborhood in the wrong direction and set the stage for even more commercial growth.
More troubling, says Tupper, is that some of his neighbors already seem to think the new CVS is inevitable. They think it’s impossible to take on the nation’s biggest pharmacy chain in its own back yard, and that public officials don’t have the stomach to stand up to the company, a generous supporter of civic causes.
“The problem is it’s CVS,” says Tupper. “It’s the big elephant in the room. No one wants to go against them.”
Planning Director Joel Mathews has already said the administration endorses the proposal, as long as it complements the neighborhood. But Catherine Ady, the deputy director of planning, says there are no guarantees that CVS will get what it is asking for from the Planning Board. She urges residents to attend the hearing - which is just the beginning of a long series of regulatory hoops CVS must leap through before it can begin construction.
“I don’t think it’s a done deal,” she said. “It’s going to be reviewed just like any other project would be reviewed.”
The reason Tupper and other opponents believe Lahousse is hooked into the CVS proposal is because the project calls not for just a new CVS store, but the expansion of parking space across the street from Kay’s Restaurant. Of the six parcels included in the proposed merger, three have homes on them that would be razed. CVS would get some of the space for the new store, and Lahousse would get a Dana Street lot to enlarge his parking area, across Cass Avenue from Kay’s.
In a telephone interview, Lahousse portrayed himself as just another one of the four property owners who are selling their holdings to CVS as part of the deal. Lahousse is selling CVS three parcels in all. He would not say how much CVS will pay him, but he said the price takes into consideration the conveyance of the Dana Street parking area to him after the house on it is razed.
Lahousse said he did not initiate talks with CVS, nor is he the developer of the project. He said CVS asked him to “talk to some developers,” but “CVS is really the developer.”
Nevertheless, Lahousse is an admittedly unabashed supporter of the proposed pharmacy. Even under the existing zoning, Lahousse said Chipman’s Corner could still accommodate a commercial building up to 5,000 square feet. That could be a bank, a donut shop, or some other business that could generate just as much traffic as a pharmacy.
At least, he said, CVS is a known entity. He said the company has a reputation as a good corporate neighbor in the places where it does business, and it has also been a generous civic partner to the city.
“They’re a good neighbor, a clean neighbor,” said Lahousse. “I know they’re a mega-giant, but they’re a heck of an asset to this city.”
Ultimately the proposal calls for rezoning some 98,000 square feet of land currently zoned for either low-density residential or a mix of residential and low-intensity commercial uses to a higher-intensity commercial use. In addition to Lahousse, Michael Briere, Dennis Aumentado and Bill Forbes are identified in city records as the owners of the land in question.
At 12,900 square feet, the proposed CVS is more than double the size of the biggest store that would be permissible under the existing zoning, and about two thirds of the size of the store the company just opened in North Smithifield, on Eddie Dowling Highway. The latter store - the biggest CVS has erected in the region to date - is 17,700 square feet and is considered the prototype for the current generation of CVS pharmacies.
When the North Smithfield store opened, CVS closed its obsolete, 24-hour Park Square store, which didn’t even have a drive-through window. Likewise, lawyers for CVS, speaking at a preliminary hearing on the Chipman’s Corner proposal last month, told officials they plan to retire the Cass Avenue store, opposite Landmark Medical Center, when the new store is online.
But Tupper says CVS isn’t showing all of its cards just yet. He says opponents have developed sources within CVS who assure them that the company will also close the Woonsocket Plaza store, on Diamond Hill Road, when the Chipman’s Corner store opens.
Even if the Planning Board approves the initial conceptual plan, CVS must return to the board for approval of a more detailed engineering plan, according to Ady. The City Council will also take up the question of whether to provide the necessary zoning changes for the development.
And presuming the Planning Board approves the necessary changes to the Comprehensive Plan, the Division of Statewide Planning would get a chance to veto the changes. But Ady thinks the state would be reluctant to do so unless the proposed changes were in conflict with some pressing state interest in the area.