The 4,680 acres of Oak Bluffs, the biggest little town on Martha’s Vineyard, account for 8.2 per cent of the Island’s acreage. Presently the third ranked town in assessed property value, a square mile of Oak Bluffs is worth $289,934,976, ranking second to Vineyard Haven. Each acre has an assessed value of $538,982. Of our total 8.7 square miles, about 1.3 miles of the town is water, thereby making the land even more valuable.

That surely has to do with recent town attempts to improve the Inkwell and Town Beach, save East Chop Drive and fix the damage Hurricane Sandy caused on the North Bluff. We’ve been interested to see the new SSA dock and facilities, overjoyed by the new fishing pier and at least entranced by the roundabout. The new bridge to Vineyard Haven is on the way to being the old one, and we anticipate a new fire and safety facility along with a walkway along Dukes County avenue to the harbor.

A committee is looking at ways to facilitate biking in downtown Oak Bluffs to make it safer and to improve signage. Last week we received the results of this summer’s survey by the Oak Bluffs downtown streetscape master plan committee. The new bowling lanes are back under construction and many people have their fingers crossed for improvements on Circuit avenue — well, except for the buildings that used to be theatres.

An Oak Bluffs zealot, I’m romantically invested with all these positive things expected over the near term. However, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission issued two worrisome reports on August 22 and Sept. 5 that warrant attention to a longer view. They were recently the subject of stories in this newspaper about sea level rise and development.

An article by Joseph Chase Allen in the June 19, 1953 Gazette titled Oak Bluffs Was Definitely an Island Once, described a rising sea level that even back then eroded land and beaches. Mr. Allen suggested that an ancient passage from the head of Deep Bottom Pond to the head of the Lagoon was a water basin that may have been hundreds of yards wide.

Our lakes and ponds account for 15 per cent of the town or, about 702 acres — nine-plus times the size of the Cottage City historic district. The commission predicts a five-inch rise of the water by 2100. They posted maps on their website that to my uninformed eye show what appears to be the loss of a lot of land around Farm Pond, parts of Canonicus and Nantucket avenues, part of Waban Park, the beach, parts of East Chop drive and the Beach Road near the hospital, perhaps as much as 200 acres. A 100-500 year flood map appears to cost the town an alarming 450 acres.

The second report about development was less specific to Oak Bluffs, so I dug up some statistics from the commission’s earlier report of 2009. The present report summarizes that there are 19,205 buildings on the Island, while 7,273 more can still be built, and 41 per cent of the Island is protected from development. In terms of acres, 23,221 of 57,188 total are protected, 17,107 are developed, 8,892 are partially developed but still subdividable, and 7,820 are available for development. Comparatively in Oak Bluffs, only 27.2 per cent of land is protected, while 46.1 per cent is developed, 2.5 per cent is wetlands and 24.1 per cent is available for development. While it is unlikely new homes or business will be built anywhere near these areas of naturally rising water levels or flood zones, it seems care should be taken in developing other areas as well — and I hope someone is looking at this. We don’t seem to have much land to spare. Unless bitten by a vampire, I probably won’t be around in 2100 but the grandchild we’re expecting next year will be 85 then — so this isn’t all that far away.

Congratulations to Temahigan avenue’s Judith M. Davenport who, after being nominated by President Obama to join the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, was confirmed by the Senate last week.

Tivoli Day; perfect, bravo Oak Bluffs Association!

Keep your foot on a rock.

Send your Oak Bluffs news to: Skip@mvgazette.com.