A divided Chilmark conservation commission voted last week to approve a project to install a new culvert in Mill Brook headwaters off North Road. Proposed by the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, the project has kicked up a cloud of controversy.
Visitors to the Cedar Tree Neck sanctuary might see a brilliant blue starflower, a state-listed box turtle, or a chestnut-sided warbler. If they are very lucky, they could spot a rhinoceros beetle, which is rarely still found on the mainland and with its characteristic horns can lift objects up to 850 times its own weight, making it one of the strongest animals on the planet.
The Vineyard could see as many as 7,032 more homes on its 17,475
remaining acres of developable land, officials from the state Executive
Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) said at an Island forum held
Thursday night.
"That's a relatively short time frame to be faced with
some tough choices," said Christian Jacqz, director of
Massachusetts Geographic Information System, in a presentation to Island
officials at the Howes House in West Tisbury.
The Vineyard Golf Club completed its purchase this week of four lots owned by the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation in the old Vineyard Acres II subdivision off the West Tisbury Road in Edgartown.
The four lots include four acres of land and were sold to the golf club by the conservation group for $310,000. Of that, $10,000 was paid to the foundation as an option at the time of the sale agreement and was used to cover legal expenses associated with the sale.
As proposals for golf courses begin to pile up on the Island, the Sheriff's Meadow Foundation released a white paper last week that among other things explains the reasoning behind a decision to oppose a golf course development on the MacKenty land in Edgartown, but not oppose a similar proposal for the Vineyard Acres II subdivision.
"A golf course at Vineyard Acres II — especially the right kind of course — would have far less environmental and ecological impact than the 148 houses that are allowed under the subdivision plan," the paper states in part.
Two Boston area businessmen and a Mississippi real estate developer have announced plans to build a private golf club on the former Vineyard Acres II property off the West Tisbury Road in Edgartown.
The would-be developers are Jay Swanson of Medfield, Owen Larkin of Boston and William Vandevender of Jackson, Miss. Their partnership is called Swanson Ventures L.L.C.
The Sheriff's Meadow Foundation, now celebrating its 30th anniversary, owes its existence to the vision, courage and determination of two remarkable people: the late Henry and Elizabeth Hough. In 1920, Henry's father gave the Vineyard Gazette as a wedding present to the two young graduates of the Columbia School of Journalism. Active as managing editor of the New Bedford Evening Standard, the father had introduced Henry to the exciting possibilities of small-town community journalism.
