MVC Begins Review of Housing Plan

Ecumenical Group Proposes 32 Units on Tisbury Land

By JULIA WELLS

Calling it a new vision for the Vineyard, a novice Island nonprofit
last week unveiled a plan to build 32 units of affordable housing in 16
duplex-style buildings on the Norton family land off State Road in
Vineyard Haven.

"We want to act to resolve what we feel to be the most
pressing problem facing the Island - community atrophy,"
declared Brad Austin in front of a packed house at the Olde Stone
Building in Oak Bluffs last Thursday night. Mr. Austin is an Oak Bluffs
resident and a partner in the Bridge Housing project.

The project is under review by the commission as a development of
regional impact (DRI). A public hearing on the project opened last week
and was continued last night.

Planned as a comprehensive permit application under Chapter 40B, a
state law that enables certain kinds of affordable housing projects to
skirt most local zoning rules, the Bridge Housing project envisions a
cluster development on land owned by the four grown children of James
H.K. and Sonya Norton of Vineyard Haven. The Bridge group has an option
to buy the 24-acre Norton property, and plans to sell 16 of the 24 acres
to the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank for $960,000, leaving eight
acres for the housing project.

A nonprofit corporation formed by five Vineyard churches two and a
half years ago, the Bridge Group is made up entirely of unpaid
volunteers.

"We are not typical 40B developers looking for increased
density with only 25 per cent of our units affordable. All of these
homes are affordable," Mr. Austin said. "We will not add to
the traffic problems or the school populations, because our homeowners,
their cars and their children are already here," he added.

Named Bridge Commons, the project calls for building 32 homes in 16
modular duplex buildings with four architectural styles: farmhouse,
colonial, Cape Cod and ranch. Mr. Austin said 32 homes are necessary to
make the project economically viable. "We don't want to pare
down the number of units because then we can't afford the real
estate - so you can see the rut we are in," he said.

Mr. Austin said parking space is planned for one and a half cars per
home, and Bridge spokesman Isaac Russell said an in-house traffic
analysis concluded that the traffic impacts from the project will be
insignificant.

Mr. Austin said the Vineyard Transit Authority has agreed to place a
bus stop on State Road near the entrance to the project. Home ownership
in the project is planned as a cooperative and Mr. Austin said families
will be selected using a list of criteria that includes urgency of need,
length of residence on the Vineyard, number of children in the family,
occupation (teachers, health care workers and the like will be given
priority) and involvement in the community.

He said time is a critical factor. "We're desperate to
have these homes in place and occupied by May of 2004 - we need
approval from this body sometime in March," Mr. Austin told the
commission. "If we miss the window of 2004 we miss another year
and lose lose another 20 families," he said.

During public testimony a number of Vineyard residents told personal
stories about housing hardships, including an Oak Bluffs senior manager
and a Tisbury businesswoman who said she had to move 10 times in the
last four years.

"If we don't solve this we are going to have to build a
bridge," declared Oak Bluffs town administrator Casey Sharpe.

The project has the support of the Tisbury planning board.
"The need for these units is indisputable in our town - this
is a real windfall gain," said planning board member Dennis Lopez.

"I am very much concerned about affordable housing - in
Edgartown the thing that concerns us is that young people are leaving
the Island," said Edgartown resident and former town selectman
Fred B. Morgan Jr. He said in Edgartown, where a brand new $16 million
school was just completed, school enrollment is down by 100 students.
"We know people are leaving," Mr. Morgan said.

But there was also testimony from neighbors - and their
attorneys - who expressed an array of concerns about the density
and the character of the project.

"This density is going to take a rural area and make it urban
overnight - it almost seems like we are being made to make up for
years of neglect by the town," said neighbor Janet Woodcock.

"I urge the commission to think carefully about the unintended
consequences of a building project that is so intense," said
neighbor Barbara Babcock.

"It's just very, very overwhelming for us because
it's so huge," said neighbor Phyllis Vecchia.

"I feel like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs,"
said Edgartown attorney Martin V. Tomassian Jr., who represents neighbor
Ken Bilzerian. Mr. Tomassian listed a number of concerns about the
project, including sharp concern about protecting Red Coat Hill Road, an
ancient way that dates to Revolutionary times and runs through the
middle of the planned housing development.

"Red Coat Hill Road - that's how it got its name,
these were the folks who used that road. There are rocks along that road
with cuts in them made by wagon wheels," Mr. Tomassian said.

The Tisbury byways committee has also raised concerns about the
impact of the housing project on Red Coat Hill Road. The Bridge plan
calls for giving two trail easements to the land bank, including one
across Red Coat Hill Road.

The plan calls for six individual wells to serve the houses and
individual onsite septic systems. It also calls for using the 16 acres
owned by the land bank for "nitrogen credit" in calculating
septic discharge from the housing development.

An engineer from Horsely and Witten who represents another neighbor
said the nitrogen credit plan is not sound because part of the Norton
property lies in the recharge area for a public water supply. Engineer
Tom Noble also said the six wells for the housing project would be
considered a public water supply and each well would need to be
surrounded by a protective zone. "These zones virtually render
the project impossible to build as proposed," Mr. Noble wrote in a
letter to MVC executive director Mark London.

"The Bridge housing proposal is the best alternative we have
come across in the two-plus years the land has been on the
market," wrote Jamie Norton in a letter to the commission.
"We see it as a compromise between thoughtful development that
meets the needs of Island inhabitants and land conservation," he
also wrote. Mr. Norton owns the property along with his sisters Heather,
Sarah and Laura.

In other business last week, the commission voted unanimously to
approve a plan to rebuild the Scottish Bakehouse on State Road in
Vineyard Haven. Tapestry Holdings, a company owned by Steven Galante of
Wellesley and Chilmark, plans to raze the old bakehouse building and
rebuild a new retail bakery, with two attached affordable year-round
apartments. The project was approved with a list of conditions,
including limits on water use, lighting restrictions and a requirement
that the landscaping be done with native plants.