Xerxes Agassi, who owns the former Educomp building on State Road in downtown Vineyard Haven, won the Tisbury select board’s support this week for his latest plan to convert the landmark structure into a 14-unit apartment complex with ground-floor office space.
After reviewing Mr. Agassi’s revised proposal, which designates certain units for workforce and affordable housing, board members voted Wednesday to send a letter of support to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, which is expected to open a new hearing on the Educomp development later this year.
Last summer, the commission denied Mr. Agassi’s previous application in a 10-6 vote, but left him the option of coming back with another proposal that includes long-term affordable and workforce housing.
“We’ve been working with them since that time to tighten up the housing offers,” the developer told Tisbury officials at Wednesday’s select board meeting.
Mr. Agassi’s new proposal sets aside one apartment for tenants earning no more than 80 per cent of the Island’s median income and another for incomes of no more than 150 per cent of the median, he said.
Three market-rate apartments will be designated for Island employers.
“We’re imagining places like the hospital, et cetera, who may want doctors to come and go who are used to a certain level of product like they would see in Boston, for example, a nice condo,” Mr. Agassi said.
“These would be commitments we’d make for the long term,” Mr. Agassi said, adding that six more apartments will be available on a year-round basis for Islanders whose incomes, while too high for subsidized housing, fall short in the Vineyard’s costly and competitive real estate market.
“A lot of people on the Island struggle to find housing in the middle,” he said.
Rents will be capped at 30 per cent of the tenant’s income, Mr. Agassi told the select board.
Recently-elected board member Abbe Burt said she was supportive of the developer’s housing concept, but wary of the project’s bulk.
“I know a lot of people in town are still concerned about the size of it,” Ms. Burt said. “That concerns me too.”
Town administrator Jay Grande said a letter of support for the project does not equal an endorsement of the design.
“You’re not being asked to approve this particular footprint,” Mr. Grande said, but Ms. Burt remained unswayed.
“I’m a little uncomfortable saying aye, so I’ll abstain,” she said, as member John Cahill and chair Roy Cutrer voted in favor of writing the commission to support Mr. Agassi’s development.
Among other business Wednesday, the select board appointed Greg Monka of Island Elderly Housing to a six-month term as conditional building inspector for the town, and reviewed warrant articles for the April 25 town meetings.
The board meets March 22 at 4 p.m. in Katharine Cornell Theatre and online, for a public hearing on the proposed anchoring moratorium in Lake Tashmoo and to finalize the town meeting warrants.
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