Commission Decides to Review Chilmark Girl Scout Camp Plan

By IAN FEIN

The Martha's Vineyard Commission last week voted to review as
a development of regional impact (DRI) a plan to demolish and expand a
Chilmark summer camp owned by the regional council of the Girl Scouts of
America.

The commission considered the project on Thursday after a rare
discretionary referral by the Chilmark selectmen. The two commission
members from Chilmark said the regional planning agency should grant a
review any time it is requested by a town board of selectmen.

"It seems pretty straightforward to me," said commission
member Christopher Murphy of Chilmark. "When selectmen from any
town ask us to review anything, we should do it."

Chilmark selectmen said they referred the project to the commission
so neighbors would have a public forum to voice concerns about increased
noise and traffic. As a nonprofit educational organization, the Girl
Scouts are exempt from some local zoning requirements.

At least one commission member during the concurrence review also
questioned whether the project as designed attempted to avoid commission
jurisdiction. The Girl Scouts proposed a new 1,996-square-foot building
- four square feet shy of triggering a mandatory DRI referral.

A Girl Scout official asserted that the proposed size had nothing to
do with the commission checklist.

The project would essentially double the size and use of the old
900-square-foot Camp Wampanoag building, located on a 3.5-acre parcel
off Middle Road and purchased by the Girl Scouts in the late 1950s.

Edgartown attorney Edward (Peter) Vincent Jr., who represents the
Girl Scouts, presented to the commission a list of proposed activities
for the property that could be added to the deed as a restrictive
covenant. But commission members replied that the proposed limits were
too vague and unspecific.

Commission member John Breckenridge of Oak Bluffs was the lone
person to vote against reviewing the project as a DRI. The commission is
expected to hold a public hearing on the proposal in the coming weeks.

The commission on Thursday also postponed until this week a vote on
an upscale members-only recreational facility proposed in Katama, and
continued until mid-July a public hearing on an expansion to the
Woodland Business Center in Vineyard Haven.

The Woodland project currently before the commission is a proposal
to build a 5,000-square-foot building with three retail units on a
half-acre vacant lot behind the present business complex. The commission
earlier this spring approved a 970-square-foot retail building in the
middle of the Woodland center, where an unused greenhouse currently
stands. Conditions of approval included a new traffic design for the
parking lot.

Traffic remains the main area of concern. The Woodland center is
located on the busy State Road corridor of Vineyard Haven, one of the
most highly traveled routes on the Island.

Robert Wood of Vineyard Auto Supply, which is across from the vacant
lot, said he had no problems with the proposed new building. And though
he praised Humphreys bakery, which opened a store in the Woodland center
last August, he noted that it added even more traffic to the already
busy driveway.

"Have you ever tried to pull out on that highway in
July?" Mr. Wood asked commission members. "It's
terrible. On a rainy day, you couldn't get out with a
bulldozer."