Aimed at protecting West Tisbury’s country-village character, a draft bylaw limiting the size and scale of new residential construction will have its first public airing Jan. 10 before the town planning board.

“They are holding this meeting so the public can come, ask questions and raise concerns,” said Samantha Look, who serves on the Preserve West Tisbury committee that has been crafting the proposed bylaw for more than two years.

Ms. Look said the committee expects to have another public meeting later in January, to gather more comment before the early-February deadline for annual town meeting warrant articles. By law, a public hearing is required for any proposed bylaw before it can be placed on a warrant.

Modeled closely on a Chilmark bylaw that received overwhelming voter support in 2013, the proposed legislation requires a special permit for most new construction that exceeds a specific size-per-acreage limit.

As drafted, the bylaw calls for a special permit if new construction will be more than 3,500 square feet of residential floor space — plus accessory buildings of up to 2,000 square feet — on three acres of property.

“You can acreage your way bigger, and you can also prorate down on smaller acreage,” Ms. Look said, referring to the 3,500-square-foot residential limit.

The 2,000 square feet of additional floor space is for outbuildings like artist’s studios and workshops that are not used for sleeping or cooking, she said.

“It is really important to note that that 5,500 square feet cannot be used [indiscriminately],” Ms. Look said.

Even with a special permit, the total size of new floor space on a three-acre lot — residential and accessory limits combined — would be capped at 7,000 square feet under the proposed bylaw.

“Large, built mass changes our experience of the land around us,” Ms. Look said. “It dwarfs the experience of place.”

In addition to tying the size of newly constructed homes and additions to their lot areas, the proposed bylaw also stiffens application requirements for special permits, calling for architectural drawings and landscaping plans with topographical detail.

Models, renderings and consultations with architects and engineers, at the applicant’s expense, could also be required by the town planning board, according to the draft.

Ms. Look said this additional scrutiny may have helped to avert the visual and environmental impact of British architect Norman Foster’s guest house on the Tisbury Great Pond, where extensive regrading and dense planting have led to runoff and a loss of viewshed.

“It has visually changed the natural aesthetic of the area,” she said.

At 4,300 square feet, the Foster house would have triggered a special permit application and allowed the planning board to examine the project, including changes to the land, Ms. Look said.

Exceptions to the proposed bylaw include accessory apartments, multi-family affordable housing and a list of non-habitable space such as attics, open porches and decks and buildings used only for agriculture.

The draft language also outlines hearing and appeal procedures and stipulates a review in two years by the planning board and zoning board of appeals, which will report their findings to the select board.

While the planning and zoning boards are the regulatory authorities, the building inspector will determine whether a special permit is necessary, according to the proposed bylaw.

Town building inspector Joe Tierney recently reviewed the draft language and recommended some technical revisions, which the bylaw committee met Wednesday to incorporate.

Work on the bylaw began after a study of building permits and other documents confirmed what Ms. Look and other longtime West Tisbury residents had suspected: “Houses are definitely trending bigger, for sure,” she said.

The planning board then approved the formation of a committee to draft a bylaw for town consideration.

Ms. Look said the document was largely ready to go in 2020. But as Covid was spreading, the planning board wanted to give town residents more time to get accustomed to remote participation, she said.

“They wanted the public to be able to engage on the process more fully,” Ms. Look said.

Since then, the committee has continued refining the draft and some details have been added as a result of the Foster project flap, Ms. Look said.

“It hasn’t changed anything fundamentally, but it has inspired us to maybe get a little more specific in certain areas,” she said.

Other Preserve West Tisbury committee members include architects Bruce MacNelly and Heikki Soikkeli, craftsman and artist Ivory Littlefield, planning board member Amy Upton and associate committee members Whit Griswold and Reid Silva.

The Jan. 10 public review will take place online during the planning board’s regular Monday meeting, which normally begins at 5:30 p.m. The meeting link and agenda will be posted on the town website at westtisbury-ma.gov.