Seven minutes before midnight Tuesday, Edgartown town meeting voters
wrapped up a long list of business - supporting a $19 million
operating budget and killing proposed house-size caps on Chappaquiddick.
But the night's liveliest debates for those in the crowded
pews at the Old Whaling Church, and perhaps the most interesting result
of the week, centered around a funding request to hire a housing
inspector to license the town's 1,500 rental properties.
Edgartown officials will soon get their foot in the door of every rental property in town, the result of a selectmen-endorsed regulation which forces property owners to license rental properties and allow inspectors to ensure dwellings meet state habitation codes.
In a marathon annual town meeting, Edgartown residents voted down
the Martha's Vineyard Commission's designation of
Chappaquiddick as a district of critical planning concern (DCPC).
Voting 195 to 134 not to establish the boundaries of the
Chappaquiddick district, the town eliminated the district designation in
one fell swoop.
Approximately 500 buildings in downtown Edgartown, most of them wood frame houses of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, are now part of a nationally recognized historic district.