Debate continued last week over expansion plans for the Edgartown refuse district transfer station, with questions before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission about the large size of the project and how it figures into future plans for the site.

The commission is reviewing the project as a development of regional impact (DRI). A public hearing opened in December and continued last Thursday. In the interval, the MVC received a slightly revised site plan along with more letters of concern from abutters.

Donald Hatch, manager of the Martha’s Vineyard Refuse District, attended the hearing along with Mark White from the engineering firm Environmental Partners.

The plan would more than double the footprint at the transfer station which handles trash from Edgartown, West Tisbury, Chilmark and Aquinnah. A new dropoff area for residential trash and a second scale for vehicles and commercial waste are planned, along with a new access road along the perimeter. In the revised plan, a large berm would overlap with an existing wooden fence and shield houses to the south. It also shows the access road running south of the existing office building, rather than to the north, to keep it out of the 100-foot buffer zone. Traffic exiting the area for recyclables will no longer merge immediately with traffic on the wider solid waste loop.

Some abutters are questioning the need. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, from Tuesday to Sunday, there is nobody around,” said JoAnn Hathaway at the hearing. She said the only time she has ever seen the station backed up with cars is in the height of summer. There is concern about an increase in rats and other pests that could come with a larger station, and also over how the project would affect homes on Watcha Path, east of the expanded area.

A commission staff report lists a number of key issues, including whether the expansion is necessary and whether improved design or a larger building for handling trash could solve the problem. Mr. Hatch has said increasing state regulations related to trash separation are one concern for the district.

Neighbors said their suggestions for the project have been ignored, and that prior to Thursday the proposal had not changed since June, when the refuse district committee met with residents to hear their ideas.

Commission DRI coordinator Paul Foley leads staff presentation on expansion plan. — Alex Elvin

Future plans for the district — and how the expansion figures into them — remain unclear.

Mr. Hatch has said the expansion would make room for future growth, but more recently he said there are no future plans for the station.

On Thursday some abutters chafed at the lack of clarity.

“What does flexibility mean?” asked Donald Harrington, who speculated that the station might expand even further based on the proposed access road, which would enclose a large wooded area on the western side.

The proposed route of the entrance road also has been a sticking point for neighbors. One commissioner quizzed refuse district leaders about whether there was room for compromise.

“If the neighbors have asked you to move the road further away and it isn’t in conflict with your operation, why don’t you just move the road?” said Leonard Jason Jr. “Give them something.”

But commissioner Josh Goldstein said: “The road is where the road is to allow for any future expansion. We don’t need to ignore the elephant in the room.”

Some of the confusion stems from the fact that parts of the plan are taken from two earlier plans drawn up by Environmental Partners in 2008 and 2011, when the district was considering consolidating with the trash district that serves Tisbury and Oak Bluffs.

Mr. White firmly refuted the notion of a hidden agenda. He conceded that the design would allow for increased volume, but said volume was not a driver in the plans.

“In the solid waste business you design so you have as much flexibility as you can,” he said. “There’s not a hidden game plan that we’re sizing this to serve as an Islandwide facility. The district has not been approached by any of the other communities.

By the end of the hearing, several smaller conversations had broken out in the room. The commission plans a site visit this week. The hearing was continued to Feb. 18.

In other business, the commission voted to review a large solar array planned in Oak Bluffs. The project is planned for a 45.5-acre property on Alwardt Way owned by the Oak Bluffs water district. Three municipal wells in the Lagoon Pond watershed are on the property. The town has hired BlueWave Capital and SunEdison to develop the array, which would cover eight to 10 acres in an area visible from both Barnes Road and a nearby bike path.

The project already requires review by the town zoning and planning boards and the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Sean Murphy, an attorney representing the water district, urged the commission not to review the project, which he described as a “passive use” of the land. But commissioners mostly agreed that the size of the project, along with the visual impacts and clearing of 20.5 acres, deserved a closer look.

Chairman Jim Vercruysse said a DRI process would allow more people on the Island to weigh in on the project. Mr. Hancock agreed. “Most people on the Island have no idea this is even happening,” he said.