A Martha’s Vineyard Commission vote on the Meeting House Place subdivision in Edgartown will be put on hold after developers indicated they will file a revised plan, the commission said this week.
According to MVC executive director Adam Turner, developers Douglas K. Anderson and Richard G. Matthews are proposing new offers and changes to the plan for 54 acres off Meetinghouse Way in the rural perimeters of Edgartown. The changes have not been publicly detailed yet, but Mr. Turner said this week that a public hearing on the plan will reopen sometime in January.
The commission was scheduled to deliberate and vote on the plan at their meeting Thursday night.
The Meeting House Place developers are leading principals in a limited liability company that bought the property in 2017.
The new proposal will be the third iteration of the subdivision submitted to the commission for review. The first plan was for a clustered 34-lot market rate subdivision with home size capped at 5,000 square feet. After commissioners and members of the public voiced concerns about the project’s density, home size, location within natural heritage area and other issues, developers pulled the plan and went back to the drawing board.
They returned to the commission this summer with a revised proposal that included 28-market rate lots, a 4,800-square-foot maximum home size and less construction on ecologically sensitive land. That proposal also included 10 below-market rate townhouses for seniors or longtime Islanders.
The developers are also offering to contribute more than $1 million to affordable housing through various incentives.
The commission land use planning subcommittee has recommended that the commission deny the project.
Speaking to the Gazette by phone Wednesday, Mr. Turner said the commission would make the additional proposals publicly available online within a week. Although he did not get into specifics, he said the changes are substantial enough that the applicant requested a new public hearing process.
“There are basically changes in the housing,” Mr. Turner said. “Whether it be housing sizes, affordability, some of the structures. There are changes in the energy component. Not so much in the layout, but some things in the specifics of the layout.”
A date has not been set for the new hearing, but Mr. Turner said it would most likely occur after the start of the new year.
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