The Martha’s Vineyard Commission continued its public hearing Thursday on developer-landlord Xerxes Aghassipour’s proposed workforce housing project in Vineyard Haven.

The hearing, which began in February, will conclude May 15 with a closing statement from Mr. Aghassipour, who testified and answered questions last week.

Located at 97 Spring street and nearly ready to occupy, the nine-bedroom residence has drawn strong opposition from nearby homeowners who say having that many unrelated workers living together would degrade the neighborhood.

Other opponents include the Tisbury planning board, whose chair Connie Alexander has presented evidence that the smaller house Mr. Aghassipour demolished was more than 100 years old.

Any demolition of an Island structure 100 or more years of age triggers an automatic referral to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission for consideration as a development of regional impact (DRI), a process that can take from months to years.

Mr. Aghassipour maintains that he and building inspector Gregory Monka, who issued the construction permit, relied on the property card on file with the town, which indicated the house was built in 1925.

“We 100 per cent believed it was not 100 years old,” Mr. Aghassipour said

Commissioners also heard from more than a dozen neighborhood residents and property owners, including two elected officials who spoke as private individual whose homes abut 97 Spring: select board member John Cahill and Martha’s Vineyard Commission member Bernadette Cormie.

Ms. Cormie, who was elected to the commission after mounting a publicity campaign against the 97 Spring street development, has recused herself from the board because she and her husband are suing Mr. Aghassipour in state land court and he is suing them in Dukes County Superior Court.

Mr. Aghassipour’s suit also names planning board administrator Amy Upton and planning board member Ben Robinson, who serves on the MVC as well and has also recused himself.

Some neighbors who spoke Thursday decried the plan to house single workers, instead of families with children in the local school.

“It feels a lot like a hotel to me, and I don’t want to live next to a hotel,” Marcie Yukevich said.

Unlike a hotel, however, the house at 97 Spring street does not have locks on the bedroom doors, Mr. Aghassipour said.

“This is more of a professional type of tenant,” he said.

Commissioners agreed to close public testimony at the end of Thursday’s meeting, but to keep the written record open until May 15.

In other business Thursday, the MVC approved the demolition of the century-old Maxwell Cottage in Oak Bluffs, with conditions to be arranged at an upcoming meeting of the commission’s land use planning committee.

Second-generation owner Andrea James plans to replace the dilapidated five-bedroom cottage — formerly a summer boarding house for Island visitors of color — with a year-round, five-bedroom home for her family.

Also Thursday, the commission voted in favor of allowing businessman Geoff Rose to surrender the DRI for his building at 510 State Road in West Tisbury.

With MVC approval in 2020, the log-cabin-style structure became the Vineyard’s first medical marijuana dispensary and later expanded to offer adult-use recreational cannabis as well.

Surrendering the DRI has freed Mr. Rose — who still operates the Island Time dispensary in Vineyard Haven — from the burden of coming to the commission for permission to make any changes to the West Tisbury site, which was vacated last year by dispensary tenant Fine Fettle.

“The DRI decision will have no further effect and will be deemed never to have been issued,” MVC hearing officer Douglas Sederholm said.

Mr. Rose is now leasing the building to a private Pilates exercise business, which does not require MVC review. Previous occupants have included an interior design showroom and Island curator Tanya Augoustinos’s art gallery.