By Unanimous Vote, Rejection

A Key Subcommittee Turns Down Southern Woodlands Plan, Citing
Detriments That Outweigh Benefits

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

Capping months of scrappy combat with the former developers of the
Down Island Golf Club, a key subcommittee of the Martha's Vineyard
Commission voted without dissent this week to recommend that a massive
housing project in the southern woodlands be denied.

The commission land use planning committee voted 9-0 Wednesday
night to recommend thumbs down on the CK Associates housing project, a
plan to build 320 houses on 270 acres, the last unbroken stretch of oak
and pine forest in Oak Bluffs.

"A new community of 320 units in a suburban setting,"
said James Athearn, commission chairman, "this would permeate the
culture of Martha's Vineyard with its traffic and other impacts.
Subdivisions like this are degrading our character . . . it is a
struggle to maintain the culture of Martha's Vineyard in the face
of this kind of development."

Commission member Linda Sibley concurred. "Nothing on the
Island - even places with cookie-cutter housing - is
anywhere near this magnitude. This plan reminds me of that cartoon in
The New Yorker where the person coming home can't find where he
lives."

The authors of the housing plan are Connecticut developer Corey
Kupersmith and his partner Brian Lafferty. The plan has been under
review by the commission as a development of regional impact (DRI). A
public hearing on the project closed last month.

Mr. Kupersmith failed three times in the last three years to win
approval for a luxury golf course on the same property. Acting through
his spokesman, Mr. Lafferty - a Bolton housing developer who now
lives in Concord - Mr. Kupersmith has made the commission his
battleground in recent months.

Throughout a series of public hearings and other meetings during the
summer and early fall, Mr. Lafferty has been combative and uncooperative
- among other things accusing Mrs. Sibley of bias and bigotry.

Two weeks ago the full commission countered Mr. Lafferty's
attacks by taking what amounted to a unanimous vote of confidence in
Mrs. Sibley.

On Wednesday night, the land use planning committee spent more than
two hours evaluating the benefits and detriments of the housing project,
moving methodically through a long list of criteria set out under the
commission's enabling legislation.

Crafted under Chapter 40B, a state law that permits affordable
housing projects to skirt most local zoning rules, the plan calls for a
mix of 240 single-family homes and 80 apartment units. Some of the
houses and all of the apartments are planned for people with low and
moderate incomes.

The commission has the power to review Chapter 40B housing projects.

The plan was accompanied by a long list of sketchy details,
including lighting, landscaping, traffic impacts and wastewater
discharge.

As the land use committee evaluation got underway on Wednesday
night, the list of detriments went on and on - clear-cutting the
last forest in Oak Bluffs, enough houses to swamp the local schools,
loss of scenic values, negative impacts on ground water and surface
water from 320 septic systems.

"The plan allows for the possibility that the area could
essentially be clear -cut," said Mrs. Sibley. "Under the
most conservative scenario they are clearing a great deal of the
property and fragmenting the rest. I just want to make sure we
don't lose - excuse the analogy - the forest for the
trees."

"This will change a rural forest into a distinct suburban area
that is not in keeping with its surroundings," concluded
commission member Paul Strauss.

Even the prospect of more affordable housing for the Vineyard dimmed
against a backdrop of other negatives.

"Three quarters of this project, which is market rate, is
going to create a need for more moderate income people - you will
need more shopkeepers and people to pump gas. It's one step
forward and at least a partial step back," Mrs. Sibley said.

"The housing is the major benefit of the project,"
reflected Mark London, commission executive director.

"It's the only benefit," said commission member
Robert Schwartz.

"I don't see anything there that is even remotely in
line with where the housing advocates of the Island are moving
toward," said commission member Andrew Woodruff.

In the end the subcommittee voted unanimously to recommend that the
full commission deny the housing project when it meets on Oct. 16.

When it was all over Mr. Lafferty, who attended the meeting and
maintained a comparatively low profile, had one thing to say:
"I'm shocked," he called out, exiting the meeting
room.