The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank has prepared a draft management plan for Arrowhead Farm — the West Tisbury property it purchased in 2020 and hopes to integrate with two other nearby properties through a network of trails.

Aired at a joint meeting Monday of the land bank commission and its West Tisbury advisory board, the plan involves improving connectivity between 33-acre Arrowhead Farm, the 7.5-acre Christiantown Woods property and a third, 7.3-acre parcel purchased in 2019.

All three properties, including Christiantown Woods Preserve — purchased in 1986 as one of the land bank’s first properties — are located near Indian Hill Road in West Tisbury.

The Land Bank is looking to better integrate its properties in the Indian Hill area of West Tisbury — Land Bank

The land bank bought Arrowhead Farm, situated just south of Christiantown Woods, in 2020 for $4.43 million from Robert Douglas, captain of the Vineyard Haven tall ship Shenanhoah. Mr. Douglas and his wife Charlene, who runs a horse farm on the land, sold the property as a life estate, allowing them to continue to reside there until their deaths.

At the meeting this week, land bank ecologist Julie Russell presented the draft plan. Priorities included using trail easements and ancient ways to link all three parcels, expanding and improving a perimeter trail at Arrowhead Farm, leasing out the farm’s hayfield and cutting vegetation around a historic root cellar at Christiantown Woods. The land bank also said it would undertake the removal of invasive plants in several areas.

The plan also addressed the use of Arrowhead Farm’s arable land following the life estate.

“It’s some of the best farmland in the area,” said Ms. Russell, presenting the land bank’s desire to lease out the cleared portion of the property as a farm.

Commissioner Peter Wells and West Tisbury advisory chairman Andrew Woodruff floated the idea of continued equestrian use at the property, which currently houses a boarding and riding facility for horses.

“I’ve been pretty vocal about my thoughts around spending public money…for equestrian use,” said Mr. Woodruff, “but I’d like to also recognize that I grew up riding horses, and…back in the day when I was a young boy there were farms on the island that offered horseback riding to kids for little or no cost.”

Land bank executive director James Lengyel said equestrian use could be considered as a portion of the lease, but that land bank’s intent was to use the land for traditional farming. “The land bank wanted to set the tone at the very outset that the primary reason…was for farming,” Mr. Lengyel said.

In other business, land supervisor Harrison Kisiel recommended renewing 13 of the Land Bank’s 14 agricultural leases. The Tea Lane Farm property, leased by Zachary Graves-Miller in 2020 (unrelated to the flower farm of the same name), was the exception. “It’s a tough looking site,” Mr. Kisiel said.

Land Bank agricultural leases are re-issued every two years.

The commission voted to renew all the agricultural leases, except the Tea Lane Farm property.