New developers of the old Vineyard Acres II subdivision in Edgartown have filed an application with the Edgartown zoning board of appeals to build a private 18-hole golf club on the site once planned for 148 houses.
Leaders in the two rival golf course development groups in Edgartown said yesterday that they will merge memberships and stop competing with each other.
Owen Larkin, the managing partner for the Vineyard Golf Club, confirmed that he has signed an agreement to offer guaranteed membership to every member of the Meetinghouse Golf Club Inc. In return, the leading developers for Meetinghouse have agreed not to reapply for permission to build an 18-hole golf course on the MacKenty family property along the Edgartown Great Pond, Mr. Larkin said.
Some 245 acres of land once planned for 148 houses in the rural perimeters of Edgartown were sold last week to a golf club development group, closing a key chapter in a complicated land transaction which began nearly two years ago.
Total sale price was $15.9 million. The sale resulted in a sharp spike in revenues for the week for the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank, which collected $318,000 in fees from the transaction.
A prominent local conservation group and a national title insurance company are among an unusual array of parties who have now agreed to sell their land in the old Vineyard Acres II subdivision to a golf course developer, the Gazette has learned.
Ending an exhaustive regional and local review that began some 15 months ago, the Edgartown zoning board of appeals voted unanimously this week to approve a plan for a private 18-hole golf club at the site of an old subdivision in the rural perimeters of Edgartown.
“I feel it complies with the vision set forth in the bylaw, and I don’t think it will adversely affect the neighborhood,” said John Magnuson, a member of the appeals board, just before the vote on Wednesday night.
It is Wednesday morning in West Tisbury and the sun streams out of a cloudless September sky, spilling through the front door of Alley’s General Store and flooding the old, worn floorboards with a warm, golden light. Out on the front porch a group of oldtimers stand amid stacks of pumpkins, drinking their morning coffee and holding court. Owen Ware, age two and a half, stands nearby, a half-eaten bag of M&Ms clutched in his left fist. A familiar up-Island resident pulls up in his car and Owen lifts a small hand in greeting. “Hi Ted!” he calls out. Ted returns the salutation.
The Chappaquiddick summer home owned by Sue and Jerry Wacks that has been severely threatened by the recent breach along Norton Point was demolished over the weekend.
Ms. Blake cut a colorful figure in Edgartown society for decades and famously documented the filming of the movie Jaws on Martha’s Vineyard in the summer of 1974.
The Norton Point breach opened on Dec. 27 and followed a series of storms that had battered the south-facing shore of Martha’s Vineyard. The Chappaquiddick summer home owned by Sue and Jerry Wacks stands as a lonely sentinel by the sea these days.
