Neighbors who are up in arms over a proposed expansion to the Hob Knob Hotel continued to fume at a hearing before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission Thursday night.
“This is not okay,” said Sara Piazza, who lives across upper Main street from the boutique inn. “I’m about to cry.”
The inn is located in the town historic district. Hotel owners want to double the number of rooms (from 17 to 35) and add a new pool and spa area as part of the expansion. Sean Murphy, an attorney representing the hotel owners, confirmed Thursday that the owners have an agreement to buy the Tomassian Law Office building across Tilton Way as part of the expansion plan.
The project is under review by the commission as a development of regional impact (DRI).
The plan calls for moving parking to the Tomassian property, re-landscaping the area and building a 2,000-square-foot addition to create 15 additional hotel rooms and eight units of workforce housing.
The hearing Thursday evening was continued from last week, when the project saw strong pushback from neighbors who expressed concerns about traffic and the size of the project. Many of those same neighbors — including a commissioner who spoke as a member of the public — and others spoke up again this week, decrying the project as too large and out of character with the historic village.
“Is it appropriate to have a 37-room inn, with 78 occupants, a spa, a pool, 21 parking spaces, which are inadequate, innumerable Uber and Lyft trips, garbage trucks, Fedex trucks, all of those things, in a residential zoning district?” asked Dan Bailey, a land use lawyer representing a number of abutters. “It’s a resort, that’s what’s proposed here. A resort.”
Ms. Piazza spoke emotionally, saying traffic in the neighborhood is already “a mess” and that the project risked sacrificing the village’s cultural and historic values. She took particular umbrage with the proposal to raze the Tomassian property for commercial use.
“We are talking about replacing a home . . . with year-round employees who are coming to the Vineyard to work. Who are these people? Transient people? I have a problem with that. You cannot replace a neighborhood,” Ms. Piazza said.
Commissioner James Joyce, who lives in the neighborhood and has recused himself from the commission review, also spoke. Mr. Joyce voiced concerns with the parking plan, and said the project as proposed would need significant noise mitigation, considering the fact that it was located in a residential district.
“We have to stick up for these neighbors here,” Mr. Joyce said. “I think the plan is just too large.”
Neighbor Jane Chittick, who spoke at the hearing last week, reiterated her concerns.
“I think this is much, much too much,” she said.
The hearing was continued to August 13.
In other business, the commission approved a plan to subdivide a 21-acre property that the Boys and Girls Club plans to buy from the Norton family for a new facility. The club has a memorandum of understanding with the town of Edgartown to sell off one of the parcels for valuable easements, where they plan to locate the new club facility. The MOU was approved at town meeting this year.
Commissioners also voted to send a letter supporting the recently-released supplemental environmental impact statement from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for Vineyard Wind. The company is planning to build an 84-turbine wind farm some 15 miles south of the Vineyard. Two undersea cables connecting the farm to the mainland were approved by the commission last year.
The project is still awaiting federal approval.
“This letter basically says, we reviewed the EIS, we’re comfortable with it, and we need to move on,” said commission executive director Adam Turner. “This is not the end of it.”
Comments
Comment policy »