Vineyard House Plan Wins Approval Amid Praise for Community Benefits

By IAN FEIN

The Martha's Vineyard Commission last week unanimously and
enthusiastically approved a new Tisbury campus for Vineyard House, a
grass roots Island program that runs homes for Island men and women in
the early stages of recovery from alcohol and drug addiction.

Reviewing the project as a development of regional impact (DRI),
commission members said last Thursday that the many benefits Vineyard
House offered to the community far outweighed any detriments.

"There is a greater benefit with this than with any other
project I think I've seen on the commission," said Douglas
Sederholm of Chilmark. "There are detriments to traffic and
wastewater. But Vineyard House has done all that could be reasonably
expected of an applicant, especially with financial limitations, and I
applaud that."

Other commission members echoed Mr. Sederholm's remarks in
praising the organization.

"Vineyard House offers a wonderful benefit to the Island.
It's completely publicly supported, but without public
money," said Christina Brown of Edgartown. "It serves our
mothers, our fathers, our children, our brothers. We all have friends
and relatives that were touched by needing a piece of Vineyard
House."

Commission member John Best of Tisbury noted that the location
- on four and a half acres off Holmes Hole Road, at the western
edge of the State Road business corridor - was an ideal site for
such a development.

"It's a community-oriented use - with a benefit to
virtually all the people on the Island - in a commercial area. It
will probably be the best-looking, best-designed use in the whole
neighborhood," Mr. Best said. "It will also be close to
public transportation and convenient for residents. But more
importantly, it will be affordable."

In the eight years since it opened, Vineyard House started two homes
for men with a total of 17 beds and another home for women with seven
beds, all in Oak Bluffs. But with 100 per cent occupancy and a growing
demand for help, the program turns away applicants every week.

The Vineyard House complex approved by the commission last week
would consolidate the program's facilities into three buildings on
one central site - with a total of 40 beds and 13,000 square feet.

Before Vineyard House can break ground on its new campus, however,
the project will require a special permit from the Tisbury planning
board.

At a public hearing last month commission members expressed some
concern about building such a large residential complex in an area that
already has traffic and wastewater issues, and is slated for other major
developments in the near future.

The site is on Short Hill Road, just north of the Tisbury landfill
- in the same spot where the Tisbury planning board has proposed a
connector road that will run from State Road to Edgartown-Vineyard Haven
Road. The commission also approved a new Dukes County Savings Bank for
the old Nobnocket garage site off Holmes Hole Road last fall.

Vineyard House offered to use a dentrification septic system to
alleviate wastewater concerns, and also purchased an additional two
acres of land on top of the original 2.5 to increase its
nitrogen-carrying capacity.

Conditions for approval include a requirement that the Vineyard
House file annual septic reports and allow no further nitrogen loading
on the back two acres of land that are currently used as vehicle
storage. Other conditions address energy efficiency and landscaping
issues such as fencing, lighting and screening.

Commission chairman Linda Sibley of West Tisbury praised Vineyard
House for the quality of its application and its willingness to
incorporate the commission's recommendations.

"I've seen before that it's possible to have good
intentions and a bad plan, but this is good intentions with a good
plan," Mrs. Sibley said. "I really appreciate that the
applicants thought hard about making the plan work."

Vineyard House executive director Brian Mackey said after receiving
approval from the commission last Thursday that he believed the process
resulted in a better project.

"I think a lot of the conditions were helpful," he said.
"We were in agreement with most of the changes along the
way."

Mr. Mackey said he was also touched by the remarks from commission
members about the benefits of the project and organization.

"Just listening to that made the whole process
worthwhile," Mr. Mackey said. "That the community gets
behind and supports a program like this really means a lot."