PAYING TOO MUCH

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

On Tuesday the town of Tisbury voted to give the Island Housing Trust, a private, nonprofit land development company, $160,000 to help pay expenses related to the Lambert’s Cove Road affordable housing project. This vote upsets my stomach.

How can affordable housing upset anyone’s stomach? Well, it’s all in the details.

The town has long wanted the 2.5-acre Lambert’s Cove Road property, obtained through tax title, to be used for affordable housing. The town obtained the 40B comprehensive permit necessary for the project, and then went out to bid for a developer to build it. The Island Housing Trust was awarded the contract, and last March the town deeded the property to the trust for the nominal sum of $24,112. The town also granted the trust $250,000 in Community Preservation Act funds, which are funds derived from town and state taxes.

State regulations govern who qualifies to own the houses once they are built, and caps how much the future owners pay. Based on the caps, the most the trust can recoup from the sale of the units is about $1,060,000. Tuesday night, Philippe Jordi, executive director of the Island Housing Trust, reported that the total project cost is $1,462,000.

Detail number one: If the trust encountered a shortfall between what it can recoup from the sale of the units and the cost of the project, why is it the town’s responsibility to come up with additional money? At this point, the Lambert’s Cove Road project is a privately-owned development. I can’t imagine the town would ever give so much to another private charitable entity, such as the hospital or the Vineyard Conservation Society.

The Lambert’s Cove Road project will result in four houses. Three of the structures will be three-bedroom units with a square footage of 1,200 and one will be a two-bedroom unit with a square footage of 900, for a total of 11 bedrooms and 4,500 square feet of living space constructed. The future owners of the units will receive bills of sale for the structures, plus 99-year ground leases from the trust.

The cost per square foot for the Lambert’s Cove Road project comes to $325. It is my understanding that the houses will incorporate sustainable design principals. I’m thrilled about that feature of the project. My house incorporates sustainable design too. It cost me $162 per square foot.

To be fair, my husband and I did a lot of the work ourselves. If we’d paid someone else to do everything, if the landscaping was finished and the solar panels for the hot water system were already on the roof, and if we’d built under the new building code, my house would have cost somewhere between $275 and $290 per square foot.

Detail number two: We — and by that I mean the town and the future owners of the units because we’re the ones covering 100 per cent of the cost of this project — are paying too much.

Add up detail number one and detail number two and I’m one ill taxpayer.

Rachel Orr

Vineyard Haven

FACTS CORRECTED

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

On behalf of the Island Housing Trust, I would like to correct information noted in a letter recently published your newspaper. The total development costs for the eight two and three-bedroom houses at Eliakim’s Way located at 250 State Road in West Tisbury is $3.57 million including land, site and construction costs, soft costs, and a three-bedroom house being constructed by Habitat for Humanity. The town of West Tisbury’s total investment of $570,000 in Community Preservation Act funds enabled six of the eight houses to be sold affordably for between $170,000 and $250,000. The building construction costs are less than $200 per square foot and built to energy efficiency standards (LEED Platinum) required of a $500,000 state-funded grant to pay for energy efficiency upgrades and solar panels that will generate most of the homeowner’s energy needs. In an energy analysis recently conducted from a sampling of Island Housing Trust’s homes, it was estimated that these eight eco-friendly homes equipped with solar panels will use 80 per cent less net energy than a typical house resulting in average annual savings of $1,440 per household (based on today’s energy prices). A copy of the trust’s home energy analysis can be downloaded from the trust’s Web site at ihtmv.org.

Thank you for this opportunity to clarify and inform the public about its investment in permanently affordable community housing. We look forward to working with the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority and the town of West Tisbury in the new year to qualify and select homebuyers who will be purchasing and moving into these homes this coming spring.

Philippe Jordi

West Tisbury

The writer is executive director of the Island Housing Trust.

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EXPAND THE ANALYSIS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Many organizations, including the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, work hard to preserve the qualities of our Island home. But where, I wonder, should the boundary lines of investigations, concerns and actions be drawn?

For example, when dealing with trash, there’s little question that we want it quickly removed from sight (by shipping it off-Island), but should we also pay attention to whether it is safely processed or neutralized once on the mainland?

When ordering materials for our construction projects, we look closely at prices, but should we also check to see whether the lumber is sustainably grown and harvested, and that heating and other equipment are assembled by fairly-paid workers in safe factories?

When maintaining our parks, roadsides, and yards, should we pay attention to the gas consumption of our mowers, leaf blowers, trucks, etc., and the pollutants they release?

When climbing into our cars, should we think about the people in foreign countries who are fighting over oil?

And when weighing our options for assuring adequate electricity on the Vineyard, should we take into consideration the many environmental impacts of off-Island fossil-fueled power plants — the strip-mining in West Virginia, the resulting dead and displaced wildlife, mercury-contaminated fish, respiratory ailments, and contaminated water supplies?

How deeply should we investigate these and other mainland issues, and how far away should we look? I suggest very far and very deeply, especially now that we’ve begun discussing the possible placement of wind turbines on and around Martha’s Vineyard, and their potential to help us solve a multitude of environmental problems, near and far.

Admittedly, our future turbine hearings will be much simpler if we decide to focus primarily on their aesthetics, and overlook the issues of mountaintop removal, oil wars, climate change, etc. But if we exclude these from our discussions, we won’t get what we want — a well-preserved and sustainable Island home.

Chris Fried

Vineyard Haven

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NIGHTMARE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The following letter was sent to Ken Salazar, U.S. Secretary of the Interior:

I am dismayed that you would seriously consider advocating the Cape Wind project designed to industrialize Nantucket Sound for the monetary benefit of Cape Wind in the name of alternative energy. The citizens of Cape Cod and the Islands are overwhelmingly opposed to this endeavor. Why not the Potomac, the Everglades, the Chesapeake Bay, the San Francisco Bay, Puget Sound, all areas that would be prime spots for these eyesores?

What an environmental nightmare! Wind turbines kill more birds, and endangered birds at that, than oil rigs ever have done. The piping plover is an endangered species in Massachusetts and Cape and Island residents are forever precluded from using the beaches during prime summer months while these birds nest and fledge. The fines and threats of permanent beach closures by the federal government loom every summer for residents and vacationers alike. Why in the world would you give a pass to Cape Wind when you know countless piping plovers and other shorebirds will be massacred by the wind turbines? Will Cape Wind be fined for the killing of these birds, will federal agents be monitoring, on site, the decimation to these bird populations? Will Cape Wind be fined as oil companies are when birds land in their oil storage bins or waste containers? Of course not! How duplicitous of the federal government.

Nantucket Sound is a migratory path for countless birds, fish, whales, turtles and other sea life, endangered and not. The vibrations from the turbines will confuse their navigational abilities and alter those centuries old migratory paths to the detriment of those traveling them. The turbine blades will decimate the migrating bird populations among others that are protected by the Migratory Bird Act of 1918.

And how does Cape Wind plan to transmit the wattage from said turbines? Pulse dredging to lay cable to deliver the wattage will further disrupt the above-mentioned migratory paths, and ecological habitats of clams, scallops, oysters, lobsters, crabs, to name a few, of Nantucket Sound. How environmentally and ecologically irresponsible.

To say nothing of the noise and visual pollution these turbines represent to those forced to live with them day in and day out. The unfettered Sound is the playground to thousands of tourists that bring billions of dollars to our commonwealth. Why would you pollute that with wind turbines?

Mary Allen Bradley

Orleans

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FIREHOUSE WINGS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank JB and the Sharky’s Cantina family for all their hard work making the first annual wingfest a huge success. The event raised $5,000 for the Martha’s Vineyard Boys’ and Girls’ Club, and everyone in attendance had a blast.

Sharky’s is a true example of a business operating as a part of the community, rather than off of it, and should be commended for the multitude of community outreach efforts they undertake.

Congratulations to the Edgartown Firemen’s Association for being crowned the first ever wingfest champions. Their Firehouse Wings have been added to the Sharky’s menu, and 50 cents from each order will be donated to the club.

Thank you to all the wingfest contestants and attendees for really making this a special event, including our sponsors.

If you missed it, don’t worry, wingfest will be back at Sharky’s in 2010. For highlights and future updates visit wingfestmv.com.

Peter Lambos

Edgartown

The writer is executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Boys’ and Girls’ Club.

The Vineyard Gazette welcomes letters to the editor on any subject concerning Martha’s Vineyard. The newspaper strives to publish all letters as space allows, although the editor reserves the right to reject letters that in her judgment are inappropriate. Letters must be signed, and should include a place of residence and contact telephone number. The Gazette does not publish anonymous letters.