The proposed Katama Meadows subdivision in Edgartown returned to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission Thursday for a new public hearing, after commissioners last week allowed the owners to withdraw a previous application.

This is the fourth iteration of a subdivision for the 54-acre parcel off Meeting House Way, owned by Utah developers Richard Matthews and Douglas Anderson. Their previous applications have all been contentious, and several people spoke up Thursday with concerns about the project’s size, traffic safety and environmental impacts. 

The resubmitted proposal still calls for 26 market-rate building lots and about 25 acres of open space, but has new plans for 26 smaller, below-market lots with deed restrictions tied to owners’ financial means.

Instead of low-income apartment buildings housing 36 units and affordable townhouses with 12 units, the developers now are offering to donate 14 lots to the town of Edgartown for affordable housing and make another 12 available to buyers earning up to 250 per cent of the area median income (AMI), with a four-bedroom limit on all 26.

Laura Silber, the commission’s housing planner, said the applicants are still working with Edgartown officials to firm up income restrictions and other details for the 14 town lots.

“A certain number of lots, from what we understand, will be deed-restricted to a max of 80 per cent AMI … and then the balance of the lots will be deed-restricted to a different AMI,” Ms. Silber said.

“The original proposal had it at 150 per cent of AMI, which is the top limit of what the MVC defines as community housing,” she said.

All of the below-market lots would be restricted to year-round residents, who would be allowed to rent out their homes no more than three times a year, for no less than a week at a time and no more than 31 days in all, according to the application from Katama Meadows LLC.

Accessory dwelling units will be prohibited, but homeowners would be permitted to rent rooms to a maximum of two people for at least three months at a time.

“They could … have roommates to help defray the cost of living in the house, which is quite common,” Ms. Silber said. 

Businesses would not be allowed to purchase lots for workforce housing, she said.

“These are owner-occupied homes,” Ms. Silber said.

The developers also are offering a deed restriction for the market-rate homes, which can be seasonal residences.

The restriction would impose a 1 per cent transfer fee, to be paid to the Edgartown Affordable Housing Trust every time a market-rate owner sells his property. 

Wastewater planner Sheri Caseau told commissioners that the development, as proposed, would not exceed the MVC’s policy limiting nitrogen in the Edgartown Great Pond watershed.

But biologist Emily Reddington, of the nonprofit Great Pond Foundation, said the commission’s wastewater policy fails to take into account the true state of the pond, which is struggling as water temperatures grow warmer due to climate change.

“That nitrogen limit is too high for this pond to thrive,” Ms. Reddington said. “It can’t support a lot more building in the watershed.”

Meshacket Cove, the arm of the Edgartown Great Pond near the site where Katama Meadows is proposed, receives 40 per cent of the pond’s total nitrogen load, she said.

“You … need to think about the nitrogen not just for this development, but the watershed as a whole, and that we’re at a tipping point,” said Ms. Reddington.

The Great Pond Foundation has opposed the project since its earliest appearance as Meeting House Way, an all-market-rate subdivision the commission denied in 2020.

The Vineyard Conservation Society also is against the development, which has led Katama Meadows attorney Robert Moriarty to lobby against the participation of commissioner Jeff Agnoli, who serves on the conservation society’s board of directors.

Before joining the Martha’s Vineyard Commission in 2021, Mr. Agnoli had testified against the Meeting House Way development, which Mr. Moriarty considered a conflict of interest when the project returned to the MVC as Katama Meadows.

Mr. Agnoli previously had declined the applicants’ requests that he recuse himself, saying he had consulted the state ethics commission and received a green light to take part in the current hearing.

He reversed his position Thursday and did recuse himself. He said the decision was partly in order to ward off a potential future lawsuit from the developers, who have been engaged in litigation with the MVC over the 2020 denial of Meeting House Way.

“I do intend to exercise my rights as a member of public and an Edgartown resident to express my viewpoint on this,” Mr. Agnoli said.

“However, to ensure the absolute integrity of the process involving … the largest subdivision to come before the commission in years and one with significance for the entire Island, as well as the ongoing and possible future legal proceedings involving the MVC, I choose to recuse myself,” he said.

Commissioners also heard Thursday from several members of the public, some of whom asked questions about the project while others opposed it frankly.

“The placement of affordable housing in the watershed in this location is absolutely not necessary,” Saul Greenfield said.

John Abrams decried the market-rate portion of the proposed development.

“The 26 market-rate lots to build large seasonal residences — we don’t need them at all. There is no need for what they are going to do,” Mr. Abrams said.

Joseph Sieber, president of the Katama Association, said he had more than 150 signatures on petitions against the development.

Harriet Barrow and Nancy Monaghan each expressed concern about bicycle, pedestrian and road safety on Meshacket Road, which has no sidewalks.

After two hours, hearing officer Douglas Sederholm continued the public hearing to Feb. 12.