Island Plan Moves Ahead with Forums to Provoke More Public
Involvement

By IAN FEIN

Roughly 200 new homes are built on the Vineyard each year, many of
them out of scale with surrounding neighborhoods or sprawling into once
rural and open areas.

Eelgrass beds, which provide breeding habitat for fish and
shellfish, have nearly disappeared from Edgartown Great Pond and
Sengekontacket Pond in the last decade, and have decreased alarmingly
- by over 50 per cent - in Tashmoo and Lagoon Ponds.

In that same time, the median home price on the Island has more than
tripled, while the gap between home costs and what families can afford
has more than doubled in the last few years alone.

With these thoughts in mind, the Martha's Vineyard Commission
is asking whether the Island should adjust course.

And the commission is now drafting an Island Plan which will attempt
to chart that course for the coming decades. A primary goal is to find
ways for the Vineyard to manage its economy and resources in a manner
that better sustains its environment, character and quality of life.

Active work groups made up of more than 100 Island residents met
frequently over the course of the year to tackle five different topics:
housing, water resources, natural environment, energy and waste, and
livelihood and commerce. Each group recently drafted a four-page
discussion paper on its topic, framing the main challenges, laying out
long-term goals and also identifying immediate actions that can be
started now.

The commission will host a series of forums this summer where each
group will present its findings and try to generate discussion and
feedback from the community. Housing will be the topic of the first
forum, to be held Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the Tisbury senior center.

Some of the initiatives listed in the discussion papers are
provocative and highlight many instances where past Island zoning and
land use efforts have fallen short.

"The Vineyard lags far behind many communities across the
nation and the globe that have taken more aggressive steps to confront
the challenges facing us all," the energy and waste work group
wrote in its discussion paper.

Noting that the Vineyard this year will burn the equivalent of more
than 750,000 barrels of oil in energy consumption and ship nearly 40,000
tons of trash to the mainland, the work group nonetheless believes that
the Island could become completely energy and waste neutral by 2050.

"Achieving this ambitious target presents complex challenges
that would take a significant commitment to deal with," the work
group wrote. "But if the community chooses to do this, it is
within our reach."

There are areas where the goals of different work groups overlap.
Additional agricultural opportunities will benefit the year-round
economy, as well as Island character and open space. The use of native
landscaping will preserve important habitat and protect vital water
resources at the same time. Increased zoning density in appropriate
locations would allow for more affordable housing, while also protecting
environmentally sensitive areas and reducing overall energy use.

All of the initiatives will also help the Vineyard be more
self-reliant and prepared for the coming effects of climate change and
peak oil.

An overarching theme throughout the Island Plan is growth and
development, the topic of a special sixth public forum to be held near
the end of August.

Today, roughly 20 per cent of the Island remains as unprotected,
buildable open space. So the Vineyard will have to decide in what manner
it should be developed, farmed or preserved for recreation and habitat.

Any new ideas will likely require a change in zoning. There are
currently 16,000 homes on the Vineyard, and another 6,000 new houses
could be built under existing zoning laws, which would result in a
population growth of between 50 and 300 per cent depending on how many
of the homes are occupied year-round.

Public participation is crucial for the Island Plan. Although it
will likely be adopted by the Martha's Vineyard Commission as the
official regional plan, the designation will not be binding and the
success of the plan will depend largely on whether the end product is
embraced by Island voters and town officials.

Some critics of the Island Plan question how useful or effective it
will actually be.

Through previous surveys and various plans, a clear consensus has
emerged that the vast majority of Island residents strongly agree that
preserving the Vineyard's environment and character is a high
priority, while a small minority say the same about promoting new
development and growth.

The commission adopted its last Regional Island Plan more than 15
years ago. Though many of the initiatives currently proposed by work
groups are new and more up to date, the 1990 regional plan largely
echoed many of the same principles.

Just last week James Athearn of Edgartown took his fellow commission
members to task for not voting in line with that previous regional
policy plan. Mr. Athearn, also a chairman of the current Island Plan
steering committee, noted that some 6,000 homes had been built on
Martha's Vineyard over the last 30 years.

"I guess the commission has had a hard time saying no over
those years," Mr. Athearn said.

"Now we're entering a time with the Island Plan where we
have all these nice thoughts, but some of them do have conflicts and we
are going to have to choose one over another. We have to make these hard
choices because the Island is finite, and we can't go on this way
forever."