When voters in Edgartown and Oak Bluffs convened for special town meetings this week, two affordable housing initiatives sailed through the approval process as if with wings. In one way, that was no surprise: it is not hard to persuade voters these days of the need for more housing for the year-round population. But in an era when it’s rare to find unanimity on any topic, it is heartening to see two of our Island communities rally around solutions to an issue that casts a shadow over the Island’s future.

The Edgartown project to build thirty-two units of mixed-use housing on nine acres of town-owned land off Meshacket Road has been on the drawing board for a few years and is now finally coming together. Town housing committee chairman Mark Hess noted that the delays have led to a better plan since affordable housing projects on the Island have seen positive refinements in recent years.

Voters agreed, and the plan now goes to the town selectmen to put it out to bid.

Oak Bluffs voters similarly wasted no time in approving a measure that will ease the rules for creating apartments above commercial buildings downtown. Going forward, a special permit process will give the planning board authority to approve such apartments.

The so-called top-of-the-shop initiative is a great example of a common-sense, smart-growth approach that should be not only encouraged but promoted as a tool for addressing the housing problem.

Apartments over storefronts make good use of the existing built environment, with its easy access to transportation, without the need for new construction on virgin land. They would be created in buildings that are already on town water and sewer lines — another boon to the environment. With such apartments there no need to relax zoning rules — an approach that can be a slippery slope since zoning rules are aimed at protecting the environment.

And finally, apartments over storefronts in downtown buildings are potentially attractive to a wide demographic group, from elderly people living on fixed incomes to young people starting out in their first jobs. Call it an organic approach to mixed-use housing. It’s nice to imagine more lights on in the winter when downtowns are mostly shuttered.

The top-of-the-shop trend idea can and should be enthusiastically embraced by the two other down-Island towns as they plan their Main streets of the future. In Edgartown, for example, as the selectmen consider a long-term lease in the near future for the Yellow House, they will have the power to require that the developer include affordable apartments as part of the project.

By now the housing crisis on the Vineyard has been well documented and is widely known. Consulting studies — some taking an alarmist tone (“If You Don’t Own a Home Already You Probably Can’t Afford One!”) — simply confirm what is obvious to anyone living here. The ferries are filled with day workers who can’t afford the scarce housing available. Filling jobs with off-Island talent is becoming increasingly difficult. And everyone, it seems, has a story about someone who was forced to leave the Island for lack of housing.

Draft housing production plans created last year for every Island town fill page after page on the Martha’s Vineyard Commission website. And now Island towns are taking action. These are small, but important steps in addressing a problem that is critical to the ongoing viability of the Island.