After a two-year buying frenzy, sales of Island properties ebbed last year and dropped to their lowest level in at least 10 years during the first six months of 2023.
The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank commission voted Monday to accept Edgartown’s offer to buy the land bank’s old headquarters on Upper Main Street for $1.55 million.
Xerxes Agassi, who owns the former Educomp building on State Road in downtown Vineyard Haven, won the Tisbury select board’s support this week for his latest plan to convert the landmark structure into a 14-unit apartment complex with ground-floor office space.
After reviewing Mr. Agassi’s revised proposal, which designates certain units for workforce and affordable housing, board members voted Wednesday to send a letter of support to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, which is expected to open a new hearing on the Educomp development later this year.
More than 200 Islanders are expected to take part in Martha Goes to Beacon Hill on March 23, an event organized by the Coalition to Create the Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank.
Under scrutiny by at least two Island towns over rising expenses and a skyrocketing legal budget, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission is defending its role.
A draft bylaw, unveiled earlier this month, aims to shield Tisbury’s housing stock from corporations like Pacaso and Ember, which market one-eighth ownership shares of vacation homes in popular destinations from Napa to Nantucket.
Polly Hill Arboretum, in collaboration with the state's Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), is taking the next step in creating sustainable, on-site housing for permanent staffers and interns.
The commission vote was unanimous to deny a request to reduce the number of workforce housing units in the downtown building. The critical need for worker housing was cited.
The fight for affordable housing on the Island cannot be won without a serious wad of cash, according to the activists for cheaper housing.
On Wednesday night at the Grange Hall in West Tisbury, advocates unveiled a plan that could funnel millions of dollars into the effort on the Vineyard and promise tangible results as early as next year in the form of cash for land and houses and subsidies for rent or down-payments on homes.
A recent benchmark housing needs assessment conducted by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission paints an increasingly dire picture of the Island’s housing crisis.
