There are still many details to be worked out, but last week’s special town meeting in Chilmark seems to have put to rest the ugly public squabbling over the Squibnocket town beach project.

The swift and unanimous vote to approve a plan crafted by a special seven-member town committee stood in sharp contrast to the reaction that greeted a plan put forward by the selectmen at the annual town meeting nine months ago. The earlier plan, calling for construction of a fifteen-foot raised roadway and relocation of the beach parking lot, was narrowly rejected by voters.

The issue dates to October 2012 when Hurricane Sandy stole away much of the town-owned Squibnocket Beach, damaged the adjoining town parking lot and compromised the narrow dirt road that is the sole access to a subdivision of large private homes called Squibnocket Farm. The selectmen’s original remediation plan was developed with the Squibnocket Farm Homeowners Association and the Vineyard Open Land Foundation and involved a complicated land transaction that would have given the town a thousand new feet of beachfront while the homeowners picked up the tab for a new elevated roadway to Squibnocket Point.

But some Chilmark residents cried foul, claiming the plan was environmentally insensitive and had been negotiated without adequate participation from other town stakeholders. After the plan was voted down, Chilmark moderator Everett Poole appointed a citizens committee to reconsider the project.

That the new proposal calls for a much lower causeway was certainly part of its attraction to voters this week. But the key to success seems to have been the extraordinary efforts the committee took to ensure that their deliberations were both thorough and transparent. Chaired by former publishing executive Jim Malkin, the committee met every week for seven months in open session, taking testimony, reviewing documents, employing experts and considering a range of options before coming up with its recommendations. Other committee members were Allison Burger, Daniel Greenbaum, Bill Meegan, Steven Flanders, Jane Slater and Janet Weidner. Chilmark town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport participated as an ex-officio member.

Issues raised by the Squibnocket project are some of the knottiest that residents of any Island are likely to contend with, and they will certainly come up more often in the years ahead. Nature has chosen to display its wrath this winter with snowfall and icy temperatures more than corrosive winds and waves, but further erosion of the Vineyard’s borders is inexorable.

Should development be allowed in fragile coastal areas, and if allowed, do those who choose to live there have a right to reliable access? Knowing that barriers will only slow, not stop erosion, do we build for the short term or let natural forces take their course? If an action meant to help one set of homeowners has the consequence of impinging on the enjoyment of others, how are their interests balanced? With limited public funding, what kinds public-private arrangements are appropriate and who decides?

If there is a lesson in the long road to resolution over Squibnocket, it is that these are not questions that can be solved easily or quietly. Messy and time-consuming though the process can be, there are benefits to negotiating in public, laying the issues out, hearing the objections and going through the often painful weighing of their pros and cons.

Chilmark is fortunate to have a group of resolute citizens willing to take on this thankless task on behalf of their community. The Island needs more like them. Now comes the even harder part: making sure that the compromise solution they worked on so diligently gets done.