With demand for affordable homesites running high and an upcoming lottery for four lots at Nab’s Corner a few days away, the Chilmark selectmen this week denied two appeals from applicants who did not meet the guidelines.

There are 14 candidates for the lots that will be awarded in a lottery on Friday. Each of the four lots at Nab’s Corner on South Road will be leased for 99 years at a cost of about $25,000.

At a public hearing Tuesday, Patrie Grace argued that her application had been misunderstood following revisions prior to the Oct. 14 deadline and that as a result, while she was included in the lottery pool, she was not given preference for having worked in Chilmark for more than five years. Julie Schmidt, who was disqualified altogether, argued that her financial assets should not have barred her from the lottery.

Housing committee member Andy Goldman, who attended the hearing along with other committee members, said these were the first homesite appeals he has encountered. He said the committee’s next order of business after the lottery should be to refine its guidelines. “They aren’t very clear on what exactly is an appeal, what are your criteria, are there timing requirements,” he said.

Ann Wallace said it was possible that the committee had miscalculated Ms. Grace’s work history, but she was confident that the committee had done its job in reviewing all of the applications. “In adding up the notarized letters and the lease that was submitted, it didn’t meet the five-year threshold,” she said of Ms. Grace’s application.

Ms. Grace countered that she had gone over her application with a town official, and that the work periods she listed were interpreted by the committee as being only for summer work. “So I don’t think I got an honest, fair assessment of the whole thing,” she said. She also had revised her work history to reflect the months, rather than just the years, of her employment.

According to town guidelines for homesite lotteries, preference may be given to up to three applicants who have lived or worked in town, or volunteered in the town’s public service sector “for an accumulation” of five years. Those with Chilmark preference for the Nab’s Corner lots will be selected first in the lottery.

A written opinion from town counsel Michael Goldsmith said the selectmen’s job at the hearing was “to address questions of policy or law — not facts,” and suggested that if applicants were allowed to submit additional information to support an appeal, then the original deadline “would, in effect, become a ‘rolling’ one.” Appeals should “be limited to interpretive or policy questions, none of which are apparent in this case,” Mr. Goldsmith wrote.

The selectmen expressed sympathy for Ms. Grace, but unanimously denied the appeal.

Ms. Schmidt, a high school teacher and employee of Chilmark Chocolates, was disqualified from the lottery because her savings exceeded the $50,000 threshold set by the homesite guidelines. “I’ve worked really hard to create those savings so that I could live on Martha’s Vineyard, and I wanted to live in Chilmark,” she said. “And then that was kind of used against me in this application process.” She added that housing prices have increased since 2007 when the guidelines were last amended.

As a longtime community volunteer and employee, she felt that she fit the purpose of the affordable housing sites. “I’ve worked really hard to be part of this community,” she said. “I don’t have a wealthy family that’s going to come in and give me money to help me buy land.”

Selectman William Rossi commended her efforts to save money, but said the appeal was irrelevant since the application did not meet the guideline. He suggested Ms. Schmidt bring her concerns to the housing committee, which might alter the guidelines for future lotteries. “At this point I think the guidelines are the guidelines,” he said.

“This is a very unfortunate case, and these numbers may very well be recommended to be changed,” said Mr. Goldman. “This is what they were at the time that we went through this application process, and that’s the basis on which we made our determination.” He said the committee has already discussed revising the guidelines.

The selectmen again expressed sympathy but denied the appeal. Selectman Jonathan Mayhew pointed out that at least one resident had not applied at all because of the savings threshold. “For the present, I think we really have to stay with what we did,” he said.

In November, the selectmen discussed the possibility of creating additional affordable housing lots on Peaked Hill. A conceptual plan shows four small lots connected to a larger lot that could be used for recreation. Mr. Rossi mentioned Tuesday that other properties were on the way and encouraged the applicants to be hopeful. But he also saw the need to revise the guidelines.

“I think that from this meeting it appears that we really should look at our guidelines and update them to reflect current-day circumstances,” he said.

An earlier version of this story reported incorrectly that Julie Schmidt was disqualified because her savings exceeded a $175,000 threshold set by the omesite guidlines. The correct threshold that applies to Ms. Schmidt is $50,000; the larger threshold applies to applicants over the age of 55.