A dispute between the boards for the Cottage City Historic District and the Copeland district of critical planning concern (DCPC) was resolved on Tuesday night when the Oak Bluffs selectmen voted to withdraw a request to abolish the Copeland DCPC, on advice from town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport.

In a Feb. 3 letter to the selectmen, Mr. Rappaport warned that the Copeland district plays a vital role in protecting the town’s historic architecture and landscape of parks. “The review powers of the Copeland board are more expansive than the powers granted the [Cottage City historic district],” Mr. Rappaport wrote.

Created in 1991 as a bulwark against unwanted development in the seaside town and to protect the Victorian architecture and landscape design of Robert Morris Copeland, a contemporary of Frederick Law Olmstead, the Copeland plan review board has the power to review and deny new architectural plans as well as hinder demolition in Ocean Park and surrounding areas.

Members of the Cottage City Historic District, which was created in 2003 and whose purview overlaps with the DCPC, have argued that the Copeland district was unnecessary and duplicative.

A public hearing on the request to abolish the Copeland district was held at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission last month. A DCPC has never been abolished in the commission’s 36-year history.

And Mr. Rappaport, who is town counsel to five of the six Vineyard towns, suggested to the selectmen in his letter that this is no time to start. In particular, Mr. Rappaport cited the Copeland board’s powers to regulate views and landscaping, powers not vested in the historic district. He also cited the extra legal strength of a DCPC, which is created under the state-chartered regional commission. “There are numerous cases addressing the powers of MVC and the extra degree of deference that a court is bound to give MVC-created boards applying district of critical planning concern regulations,” Mr. Rappaport wrote. He suggested that any points of difference or overlap between the two boards could be ironed out without going before the MVC, and he offered to help the two sides find some consensus. “I would be more than willing to participate in such discussions,” Mr. Rappaport wrote.

In the end the board agreed and voted to withdraw the request to abolish the DCPC.

Selectman Kerry Scott, who is also a member of the Copeland plan review board, expressed relief at the outcome. Ms. Scott had argued against the request at the commission hearing last month. And this week she said the review board had been unfairly characterized.

“Much was made at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission hearing . . . the Copeland board doesn’t meet, the Copeland isn’t active. The Copeland was made to look like a lame duck and I resent that,” she said.

“I’ve tried to tell people here for months that Copeland does things that the historic district cannot do and does not do, and those things are very important,” said Ms. Scott. “We’ve all learned quite a bit from this process,” said town administrator Michael Dutton, who recommended that the selectmen spearhead a committee to resolve the differences between the boards.

Selectmen also agreed Tuesday night on a plan to rebuild the crumbling North Bluff seawall to a height of 12.5 feet, two feet higher than it currently stands, on the recommendation of CLE Engineering as well as the town conservation commission.

Ms. Scott endorsed the plan but expressed reservations about the changing face of the Oak Bluffs oceanfront.

“What’s happening on the North Bluff is going to be such a departure from what we’re used to there,” she said. “It’s exciting and maybe most of it is wonderful, but it’s going to be an incredibly highly engineered waterfront from here on out. It’s not going to look like the waterfront that I grew up on.”

On the same topic, Stephanie Mashek of Mashek MacLean Architects Inc. discussed with the board the historic renovation of the brick and clay comfort station near the Steamship Authority terminal. There were some grumblings in the audience about the lack of flower boxes in the new design.