Changes Could Threaten Plan for Housing, MVC Is Warned

By MANDY LOCKE

As the Martha's Vineyard Commission (MVC) concluded its review
of a 60-unit affordable rental development in Edgartown, town leaders
warned commissioners that tampering with the proposal would jeopardize
the project.

"Some conditions placed on this could delay or kill the
project," Alan Gowell, a member of the Edgartown affordable
housing committee, told commissioners Thursday night.

This town-driven project relies on a delicate balance of factors,
Mr. Gowell explained, as he ran down a list of about a half-dozen
stipulations which he described as unacceptable.

The Pennywise Path project - slated for 12 acres bordered by
the Vineyard Golf Club, conservation land managed by the Martha's
Vineyard Land Bank and the Arbutus Park neighborhood - would offer
affordable apartments to low and moderate-income Islanders. The town
will lease the land to The Community Builders (TCB), a nonprofit
affordable housing development corporation based in Boston. TCB would
construct the units and manage the 60 units in the future.

Access roads, density, local preference for residents and
alterations to conservation restrictions have been sore points
throughout the MVC review. Mr. Gowell warned that drastic changes in any
of these areas could sabotage the proposal.

The project, as proposed, relies on a single access road along 12th
street. Edgartown leaders are working on another access to share the
traffic burden, but they urged commission approval without a backup in
place.

Town leaders have been trying to arrange for another route off
Metcalf Drive, but creation of this new road involves changes to a
conservation restriction. The town has proposed swapping a conservation
restriction over a narrow strip of land, 1.4 acres running between the
Vineyard Golf Club and land bank property, for a conservation
restriction over seven acres of land which includes an environmentally
sensitive frost pocket. The swap relies on a vote of the state
legislature. While town leaders are confident that approval will come,
they cannot guarantee the matter will be taken up before the end of this
current legislative session, set to close later this month. In addition,
the access relies on final negotiations between the town, the golf club
owners and land bank officials.

"It appears it's going to pass. We may still be
negotiating with the Vineyard Golf Club a year from now, and we
don't want to stop this project while we wait for that,"
said Mr. Gowell in a phone conversation yesterday.

Forcing a decrease in the number of units will upset the budget for
the project, developers said. Knocking 10 units off the total of 60 will
force the developers to find $500,000 more in funding.

"Right now, we feel we're using every available
dollar," Mr. Gowell said.

If commissioners demand the 60 units be phased in over months or
years, the developers will pull out of the project. Also, if the project
as approved by the MVC varies significantly from the parameters town
leaders set in their initial request for proposals last year, it could
be another setback for the project.

"We can't stray too far from the advertised RFP or we
start the project all over again," said Mr. Gowell. Under state
bidding laws, the town is constrained to develop a project described in
an RFP.

Requiring a conservation restriction over the seven acres
surrounding the frost pocket would delay the project as well.
Conservation restrictions require a town meeting vote, and convening
such a meeting at this stage would delay the project.

Mr. Gowell also urged commissioners to not specify exactly where the
sewer lines connecting the project to the town wastewater treatment
plant should be installed. Mr. Gowell said that one of three paths for
the sewer line - along a new Metcalf Drive access road, across the
Vineyard Golf Club or through the Edgartown Meadows neighborhood -
is likely.

The Pennywise Path Project is being applied for under Chapter 40B, a
state law which allows developers to bypass certain local zoning
requirements if a quarter of the stock is affordable. The Martha's
Vineyard Commission has full review power over Chapter 40B projects; the
land use agency must sign off on the project before it can be reviewed
on the town level.

A certain level of tension between commissioners and Edgartown
officials has been evident since the beginning of MVC review. Edgartown
leaders have been working on this project for more than three years. MVC
members are accustomed to scrutinizing developments of regional impact
intensely, and to attaching conditions to projects before they are
built.

The fault lines were evident again Thursday night.

Regarding the town guidelines for determining Edgartown residency,
MVC chairman James Athearn asked: "Where's the
commission's guarantee that [the guidelines] won't be
perverted in the future?"

"This is a town issue," responded Edgartown selectman
and former MVC member Michael Donaroma. "If the committee
couldn't come to an agreement, the issue will come to selectmen to
decide."

A longtime Island advocate for affordable housing, Juleann VanBelle,
took aim at the project Thursday night.

"I believe people have a given right to have housing
that's decent and affordable," said Ms. VanBelle.
"I'm not really certain this will be desirable for people
actually living there."

Ms. VanBelle also criticized the plan to alter a conservation
restriction for the sake of an access road, saying: "It's
disrespectful to pit these community commitments against one another.
I'm concerned that affordable housing has become the sacred cow,
that we're asking for affordable housing at any cost."

In closing, Ms. VanBelle urged commissioners to improve this
project.

"I don't want the MVC to deny this project; I do want
people to wake up," she said. "We live in a community with
people wealthy enough and creative enough to make a project better than
this."

The MVC closed the public hearing Thursday night, but left the
written record open until noon on this Thursday. The commission's
land use planning committee will meet to discuss the project on July 12.