A divided Martha’s Vineyard Commission voted 8-7 Thursday to approve plans for the Ocean View Hotel, a 26-room seasonal hotel in East Chop with an additional apartment for the manager and two dormitory rooms for up to eight employees.

To gain the commission’s approval, owner Charles Hajjar has agreed to replace a planned outdoor pool and fire pit with a landscaped garden area and install blackout curtains for windows overlooking neighbors’ properties, with hotel staff required to ensure the curtains are drawn from sunset to 7 a.m.

Other conditions include measures to reduce the sound from rooftop air-handling systems and limits on when refuse collection may take place.

The hotel is planned to have a partial kitchen providing guests with light fare such as charcuterie platters, according to the approved proposal. 

The 26-room hotel features a Victorian design that has been criticized for being too big. — Courtesy MVC

Its bar would be unstaffed, with hotel employees trained in alcohol service, and both food and alcohol would be served only to registered guests, who would be prohibited from bringing other people onto the property. 

Rising three stories above Chapman avenue, the hotel will block views of Oak Bluffs harbor from parts of the surrounding neighborhood, where residents organized to fight the development with lawn signs and coordinated testimony at commission hearings.

During deliberations, it emerged that the Martha’s Vineyard Commission is not bound by a change to Oak Bluffs regulations for development in the Copeland Plan District, which includes the East Chop neighborhood also known as the Highlands.

While town meeting voters had approved language that would prohibit buildings that block views from existing homes, that change was never approved by the MVC, hearing officer Douglas Sederholm said.

Commissioner Brian Smith strongly supported the project, which architect Peter Gearhart has designed to evoke the Victorian era of grand Oak Bluffs hotels.

“This is exactly what belongs in Oak Bluffs on this lot. This neighborhood was filled with these kind of hotels,” Mr. Smith said. “There was the Wesley right down the street [and] the Highlands Hotel, down where the East Chop Beach Club is now, which was a huge hotel that had 200 bath houses,” he said.

The original Ocean View Hotel, which preceded the Ocean View restaurant that burned down in early 2022, existed alongside the neighboring cottages, Mr. Smith said.

“This is the character of that neighborhood,” he said.

Commissioner Michael Kim agreed that Mr. Gearhart has designed a handsome building, but sided with abutters in considering it too large for the area.

“The neighborhood came together as a community in its opposition, and in my years here, I’ve never seen anything like that,” Mr. Kim said.

“I think [the applicants] are close to doing something the neighborhood can live with, and I think they actually have done a very commendable job … but it’s just too big,” he said. 

Part of the problem, Mr. Kim said, is that the commission’s guidelines seek to place employee housing on the development site.

“It should take place on a close-by site, so we can make this thing a little smaller,” he said.

Mr. Kim was joined in opposing the project by commissioners Jeff Agnoli, Ben Robinson, Bernadette Cormie, Mark Gauthier, Kate Putnam and Peter Wharton.

Voting with Mr. Smith in the majority were Willa Kuh, Greg Martino, Kathy Newman, Linda Sibley, Ernie Thomas, Jannette Vanderhoop and Mr. Sederholm.

Thursday’s decision frees Mr. Hajjar, who owns several other hotels on the Island, to seek town permits for the hotel, but the MVC is not finished with the Ocean View: Mr. Hajjar still must submit plans for landscaping, exterior lighting and wastewater for approval by the commission’s land use planning committee.

Also Thursday, a continued public hearing on the proposed Green Villa apartment complex in Oak Bluffs was postponed at the request of project’s applicants and will resume Jan. 26, Mr. Sederholm said.