MVC Chairman Blazes Housing Trail

By IAN FEIN

A pending proposal by the chairman of the Martha's Vineyard
Commission to carve a one-acre affordable housing lot off her West
Tisbury property has drawn criticism from one of the Island's most
vocal affordable housing advocates who lives next door.

Planning board members, who are now considering the proposal, in
turn criticized the housing advocate last month for what they suggested
was a hypocritical opposition.

A public hearing on the homesite is set for 7:30 p.m. Monday at the
West Tisbury town hall.

Shadbush Lane residents Linda and Donald Sibley are seeking to
divide their 4.5-acre property to create a one-acre homesite lot for
Simon Bollin, 28, who has worked for Mrs. Sibley in her Vineyard
Electronics business on State Road in Vineyard Haven for the last 14
years.

Mrs. Sibley, who also serves as chairman of the Martha's
Vineyard Commission, and her husband are the first private landowners in
either Chilmark or West Tisbury to offer a piece of their land as
affordable housing through the homesite lot program adopted by both
towns in recent years. Deed-restricted homesite lots can be as small as
one acre and still fall within three-acre zoning for the purpose of
affordable housing for qualified recipients. A few other homesite lots
have been created, but those came primarily as concessions through
larger subdivisions. Created through zoning bylaw amendments, the
homesite lot provisions in Chilmark and West Tisbury are distinct from
the youth lot and resident homesite programs that have been in place in
Vineyard towns for a number of years.

"This is the first of its kind," West Tisbury planning
board chairman Murray Frank said of the Sibley proposal this week.
"This is the first time somebody has stepped up on their own, and
I think it's terrific that the Sibleys are willing to do it. I
hope it's viewed as a model and that others will follow."

Mrs. Sibley said she and her husband decided to offer Mr. Bollin a
lot after watching him struggle unsuccessfully for two years to find a
landowner willing to carve off an acre for him in Chilmark, where he has
long been on the volunteer fire department and was one of the first
people to qualify for the housing program.

"I watched his passionate efforts to become a homeowner on
Martha's Vineyard, and it seemed to me wrong that he
couldn't build a home here where he belonged," Mrs. Sibley
said, noting that Mr. Bollin's family heritage on the Vineyard
extends back multiple generations.

Mrs. Sibley admitted that it was a difficult decision - and
that she would not have offered her land to a stranger - but she
added that private owners with much larger tracts of land could likely
carve off an acre for affordable housing with a very minor impact to the
rest of the parcel.

"I would hope that someone with a smaller parcel might be
willing to do this for someone they know," Mrs. Sibley said.
"But I would also hope that someone with a larger parcel might be
willing to do it for the greater good."

Mrs. Sibley also said she understood her neighbor's general
resistance to the homesite lot, particularly because they live in the
Buttonwood Farm area off State Road, where homeowners benefit from
four-plus acre lots and would have a natural reluctance to greater
density.

"People have been here a long time - there's been
a lot of stability in here," said Mrs. Sibley, who with her
husband has lived in the same home for roughly 30 years. "I
understand the sense of loss. Change is not easy to take."

Island Housing Trust chairman Juleann VanBelle - whose
property abuts the Sibleys' - approached the planning board
during an informal discussion about the homesite proposal in June to
express her concerns.

According to board minutes of the meeting, she said it would set a
bad precedent for the neighborhood - where at least nine other
homesite lots could be created - and that the new lot would pose a
greater burden to her than to the Sibleys. Ms. VanBelle said that the
owner of the new lot would be her neighbor, in her backyard, and that
the new home would be a direct impact on her in every single way.

Ms. VanBelle told the planning board that the new house would be
directly in her line of sight from her own home, and that the additional
driveway through the Sibley parcel would run along her property line.
She suggested that a better location for the homesite lot would be on
the other side of the Sibley property.

After a subsequent site visit board members said last month that
they felt the proposed site was an appropriate location.

At the end of their meeting in July, before reaching a consensus
that the Sibley proposal was viable and adequate and ready to go to a
public hearing, board members took turns commenting on Ms.
VanBelle's opposition.

According to the minutes, board member Eileen Maley said it
distressed her that such a vocal advocate for affordable housing would
voice concerns over having a homesite lot as a neighbor. Mark Yale said
he was disturbed by Ms. VanBelle's comment that it would devalue
her property and added that he found it duplicitous that she asked
Island residents to spend additional money funding affordable housing
- by lobbying for the passage of the Community Preservation Act
this spring - while she felt should be exempt from the
consequences of such housing.

Mr. Frank concluded the conversation by saying the Sibley homesite
lot was in the town's best interest, and that Ms. VanBelle was
making classic NIMBY - not in my backyard - arguments.

Ms. VanBelle did not return a call for comment this week. But as a
panelist at an affordable housing forum sponsored by the Martha's
Vineyard Commission in June, she said she thought the word NIMBY was
polarizing and that people should stop using the acronym altogether.

"When a project comes forward for a neighborhood, someone
might not be against the project entirely," Ms. VanBelle told the
audience. "But maybe it's changing what they consider their
home and neighborhood without a lot of say."