Judge Backs MVC in Robinson Case

Superior Court Says Decision to Deny Expansion for Hotel, Racquet
Club Was Reasonable, Not Arbitrary

By JULIA WELLS

A superior court judge ruled yesterday that the Martha's
Vineyard Commission did not stray outside the lines of its authority
when it rejected an expansion plan for Jack E. Robinson Sr.'s bed
and breakfast on New York avenue in Oak Bluffs last year.

"It is apparent that the commission's decision has a
rational basis . . . its determination that the probable benefit of the
proposed development would not exceed the probable detriment is
well-grounded in the facts . . . and not arbitrary and
capricious," wrote the Hon. Judith Fabricant, an associate justice
of the superior court.

Mr. Robinson had appealed to Dukes County Superior Court the
commission's denial of a proposed 10-room expansion to his inn and
tennis center in an eclectic neighborhood on the outskirts of Oak
Bluffs. The commission reviewed the project as a development of regional
impact in the summer of 2005. Mr. Robinson's inn is named the
Martha's Vineyard Resort and Racquet Club.

A jury-waived trial was held before Judge Fabricant in the Edgartown
courthouse early this month, at the outset of the fall sitting of
superior court.

At trial, Mr. Robinson's attorney argued that the
commission's decision was arbitrary and unsupported by the
evidence. Attorneys for the commission said the proposed expansion was
not appropriate for the neighborhood.

The case marked only the second time in the history of the
commission that an appeal of a commission decision went to a complete
trial. No decision by the regional planning agency has ever been
overturned on the merits.

In the 14-page ruling issued yesterday, Judge Fabricant kept that
record intact by siding squarely with the commission; among other
things, she took special note of the town master plan and the regional
Island plan. She wrote that Mr. Robinson's expansion plan ran
counter to the goals of both.

"Both these plans reflect determinations that commercial
growth should be limited to established business areas, so as to
maintain and promote the viability of the business areas, while
maintaining the character of residential neighborhoods," the judge
wrote in part.

"Approval of the plaintiff's plan would have moved in
exactly the opposite direction, drawing business and activity away from
the downtown commercial center out to a residential neighborhood, with
adverse effects on both areas," she also wrote.

Judge Fabricant concluded: "Although other businesses exist in
the plaintiff's area, none approaches the size or scale of the
plaintiff's proposal
. . . The commission's decision not to
add this large-scale project to the pre-existing commercial uses in this
residential neighborhood was entirely reasonable."

Judge Fabricant visited the site after the trial concluded and
before issuing her decision.

Mr. Robinson, a former head of the Boston chapter of the NAACP, has
filed more than one expansion plan for his inn over the last two years.
In 2004, the commission denied a 19-room expansion plan.

Last fall, Mr. Robinson filed a separate complaint against the
commission with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the
state agency that enforces the commonwealth's anti-discrimination
laws, claiming that racism played a role in the commission's
denials of his plans. The discrimination complaint is still under
investigation by the state commission.