MVC Denies Katama Meadows

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission voted Thursday night to deny the Katama Meadows subdivision in Edgartown, dealing the Utah-based land owners their latest defeat in nearly a decade of efforts to develop the 54-acre property they purchased for $6.6 million in 2017.

The late-night, 10-3-1 decision followed more than two hours of debate, at the end of a 19-month public hearing and review process that saw major alterations to the mixed-income proposal located off the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road.

Commissioners voted in July to reduce the number of market-rate housing lots in the mixed-income development from 26 to 19, in order to preserve more open space and reduce nitrogen pollution. They also banned swimming pools and lawn fertilizers and imposed solar energy requirements, with the developers contributing to the cost of adding solar generation for homes on the 26 income-restricted lots.

On Thursday night, commissioner Douglas Sederholm argued in favor of approving the subdivision, saying these changes made it the best development plan the commission was likely to see for the location.

“This is not a proposal to develop 54 acres of land. It’s a proposal basically to develop 22 acres of land and preserve forever 32 acres of land,” he said.

The Island’s land conservation agencies have declined to purchase the property, Mr. Sederholm said, and there are several older subdivisions nearby.

“This land is going to be developed. There’s no doubt about that,” he said, warning that a denial could lead to a larger, denser and less affordable project in the future.

“I’m really concerned that the next iteration will not be good,” said Mr. Sederholm, who voted with the minority on two motions Thursday night.

On the first motion, to approve Katama Meadows with the commissioners’ conditions, Mr. Sederholm was joined by Daniel McGinn, Ernest Thomas and Michael Kim.

Other commissioners remained unswayed.

“When is enough enough? Even our own housing planner has said we cannot build our way out of the housing crisis,” said Brian Smith of Oak Bluffs.

“Sooner or later, we have to come to that realization and look at other paths to help people get into housing that don’t destroy the environment,” Mr. Smith said.

Willa Kuh of Chilmark struck a similar note.

“Even though this appears to support our housing policy, I don’t feel in my soul that it’s workable,” she said

Joan Malkin of Chilmark, Ben Robinson of Tisbury and Linda Sibley of West Tisbury expressed concern for native wildlife and nitrogen pollution.

They also criticized the subdivision’s layout, which segregates the income-restricted and market-rate lots in separate areas.

After the motion to approve failed 10-4, Mr. Thomas abstained from the vote to deny Katama Meadows, with Mr. Sederholm, Mr. McGinn and Mr. Kim voting no.

Katama Meadows attorney Robert Moriarty told the Gazette Friday that he felt the commission squandered an opportunity to provide “missing middle” housing to Island workers.

He also argued that the project met the commission’s policies on housing, water quality, energy and open space, and had the support of the Edgartown select board and affordable housing committee.

“The project’s attainable housing proposal was identical to the Walking Man Close project that the MVC had previously approved in 2024,” he said. “Nonetheless, subscribing to the platitude ‘we can’t build our way out of this,’ the MVC turned its back on the missing middle; thereby ensuring that they will continue to go missing to the detriment of the continued vitality of the Island community.”

Thursday’s decision virtually guarantees the resumption of legal action by the landowners, Douglas K. Anderson and Richard G. Matthews, who have been challenging the Martha’s Vineyard Commission in court since 2020, when commissioners voted 10-4 to deny a subdivision plan known as Meetinghouse Place.

That project, which started out as a 38-lot plan for market-rate homes up to 5,000 square feet, also underwent several revisions over the two-year commission review process.

The final iteration of Meetinghouse Place proposed 28 market-rate lots on the undeveloped property for houses up to 3,800 square feet along with 14 small, income-restricted apartments, which Mr. Sederholm called “a garbage offer … with no benefit to us,” in his remarks on Thursday.

A judge in 2022 found the commission had acted within its authority in denying the prior project. The developers appealed, and later agreed to put their litigation on hold to apply for a new subdivision that would consider local housing needs.

The first Katama Meadows project, submitted to the commission in March, 2025, had 26 market-rate lots, 12 duplexes and 36 low-income rental units. That plan failed to win favor with Edgartown officials, who said the real need was among residents of moderate means, including town employees.

In January, 2026, the commission allowed the developers to withdraw that application and opened a new hearing on a revised Katama Meadows plan.

The developers offered to donate more than half of the 26 income-restricted lots to the town of Edgartown and to Habitat for Humanity, which would have boosted the town’s state-mandated inventory of subsidized housing.

But this benefit is illusory without a plan or funding to build the housing, Mr. Robinson said.

“The idea that lots get us to affordable housing is quite speculative,” he said.

Editor’s note: a previous version of this article incorrectly stated the first iteration of the Katama Meadows plan.