Introduction 1.0: Introduction

A combination of isolation and strong actions by the local community has kept the Island of Martha's Vineyard as a very special and distinct place in the world. But significant additional effort will be needed to ensure that excessive or poorly managed growth don’t undermine the very qualities that make people want to live or visit here, and slowly destroy the Island that we love.

Insulated by four miles of ocean, Martha's Vineyard was until the mid-20th century a community with its own manner of doing things. It was largely independent and self-reliant, with an economy based largely on fishing, farming, and increasingly on tourism. Most people lived in villages where they could walk to school, the post office, and shops. People supported each other in tough times. They could walk freely in the countryside, in woods, fields, and on beaches most likely owned by relatives or friends. Change was slow; new residents and buildings fit into the existing community without causing disruption. It was in many ways the model of what we would now call “sustainable development” or “smart growth”.

Even today, visitors are amazed to find a place where the environment and lifestyle has been touched more lightly by modern life than most of America. Though the Island has changed in the past generation, strong and conscious community action has done a much better job of maintaining the Island’s distinct, high quality physical and social identity and character than most other places. We retain from the past many characteristics that other communities are now striving to create. Community life is still largely centered on main streets and rural general stores rather than suburban shopping malls. People know and take care of their neighbors. A drive out of town means passing through woods and fields along curving, tree-canopied, two-lane roads rather than through strip malls.

In many ways, we are so far behind that we are way out ahead.

However, in other ways, the Vineyard has gone off course. Ironically, the Vineyard’s success in preserving its natural beauty and its small-town, New England charm has attracted unprecedented growth and prosperity that undermines those very features. As the quality of the environment in much of the rest of America has deteriorated, the Vineyard has become an ever more rare and attractive tourist destination and place for seasonal homes. The result has been massive growth, far outpacing all other regions in Massachusetts except Nantucket.

While we have successfully managed this development to a large extent, we are not immune to what is happening on the mainland. Our economy and our way of living are increasingly part of national systems; we are almost completely dependent on imports of food, energy, and manufactured goods. The costs of housing and living are soaring faster than off-Island. Rapid growth, channeled by off-Island-style zoning regulations, has led to a form of suburban sprawl, to pollution of coastal ponds, and to fragmentation and destruction of vast swaths of globally rare habitat.

These changes are making the Island more and more like everywhere else.

Our economy is directly or indirectly based almost exclusively on keeping the Vineyard as an attractive place to live or visit. But there is concern that we are allowing the Vineyard to be increasingly and negatively transformed, and that this will undermine our visitor-based economy and all our livelihoods.

Introduction 1.1: Successes

The Island has many strengths worth recognizing and holding onto.  

·  The Vineyard has maintained a strong sense of community, where people will pitch in to help a family facing sickness or fire, or to build an Agricultural Hall.

·  The Vineyard has in many ways managed to keep the Island’s rural character and a considerable amount of open space.

·  The Vineyard has preserved the distinct character of each town, from the unique streetscape of each main street to the different way each town government works.

·  The Vineyard has retained mostly small, locally-owned businesses and banks, with no big-box stores and almost no chain stores.

·  The Vineyard still has farming and fishing which provide local, fresh food, and contribute to the Vineyard’s character.

·  The Vineyard remains a diverse community with year-round and seasonal residents, with a large range of income levels, and with a variety of ethnic groups.

·  The Vineyard has very good municipal services – schools, police, fire, EMT, libraries – as well as very good hospital and medical/community services.

·The Vineyard Transit Authority carries a million passengers a year. If you think traffic is bad now, imagine if all those trips were being made by car.

·  The Vineyard has significant wealth – property values of over $18 billion and an “annual gross domestic product” of over $800 million – which makes many good things possible (though it is not without its negative impacts as discussed in the next section). Our good services are thanks in large part to the financial support of seasonal residents who pay a considerable portion of town taxes and are generous contributors to Island non-profits.

Introduction 1.2: Challenges

Martha's Vineyard is a wonderful place, but it is on a course that will lead to deterioration of many of the features we treasure most, unless we act. This section outlines the key challenges that the Vineyard today, or will face in the future as a result of continuing trends and off-Island forces. Many are related to continued development and changing population.

The remainder of the Island Plan will describe how we can deal effectively with these challenges, by working together on a clear new course of action.

 

Challenge 1: Growth is unsustainable. Over the past forty years, the Vineyard has faced massive growth, with the population increasing from 6,034 in 1970 to about 15,444 today. Though we’ve managed this growth better than most places, it has significantly changed the Island and our way of life. However, this amount of development cannot be sustained, because this growth is the fundamental cause of many of our other challenges listed below, such as traffic congestion and pollution in ponds. Also, since the Island is of limited size, we have to face the fact that we simply cannot grow indefinitely.

Challenge 2: Character and scenic values are deteriorating.

The Island’s visual character – a combination of scenic roads, exquisitely beautiful natural areas, and small town New England architecture – is both at the core of our sense of ourselves and is key to attracting visitors. The addition of many small changes – a large new house here, a roadside stockade fence there –continue to undermine this character.

Challenge 3: Suburban sprawl is consuming the countryside.

Development is taking large amounts of land, fragmenting habitat, and increasingly forcing residents to drive to get to work, store, or school. Commercial development on the outskirts of town – notably Upper State Road in Tisbury, Upper Main Street in Edgartown, and the West Tisbury Business District – has allowed for larger-scale businesses without destroying historic downtowns. Yet these are essentially car-oriented, commercial strips that are both poor environments for pedestrians and undermine the Vineyard’s character. Downtowns are increasingly being turned over to seasonal shops, empty in winter.

Challenge 4: It is getting harder to get around.

Traffic jams at key intersections are already problematic in the summertime. However, since we have reached the capacity of much of our road network, future growth threatens to lead to serious gridlock for much of the year. We have successfully avoided widening roads (other than the widening of the Edgartown-Vineyard-Haven and Edgartown-West-Tisbury Roads in the 70’s) or putting in traffic lights that would undermine the Island’s character, though increased traffic will increase pressure to make these kinds of road “improvements”. Growth in the bus system is constrained by financial limitations. We have 37 miles of off-road bike paths, but there are many gaps at critical places in the network and on-road bicycle accommodation is deficient in many locations.

Challenge 5: Public access is limited.

Property owners are increasingly resistant to allowing  public access to private lands, ending the traditional informal access to land and beaches. This is turning us into an island where we cannot get to the water, though public control of some large beaches, such as State and South Beaches, has been secured.

Challenge 6: Zoning is outdated.

In an attempt to deal with increased development in the early 1970s, towns adopted zoning regulations using standard zoning formulas from off-Island (e.g. large single-use areas with uniform lot sizes and setbacks).  In retrospect, much of our zoning has many important flaws, forcing development to sprawl into rural areas and prohibiting traditional settlement patterns by banning  small lot sizes in town while allowing new buildings that are out of scale with their neighborhood.

Environment

Challenge 7: Wastewater is polluting coastal ponds.

Nitrogen pollution, largely the result of wastewater coming from septic systems, is already polluting many of our coastal ponds. We have not yet seen the full effects from the existing buildings, let alone from future growth. This undermines our commercial and recreational fishing industries, limits recreational uses of ponds, deteriorates the quality of the environment, and undermines property values. We also need to deal with other sources of excess nitrogen, such as landscaping.

Challenge 8: Climate change will modify our climate, coastline, and habitats.

It is now clear that the Earth has entered a period of considerable climate change. For the Vineyard, we will see a greater frequency of hurricanes and major storms, and sea level rise will threaten low-lying areas, such as the Vineyard Haven waterfront and much of downtown Edgartown. We are projected to have a generally warmer climate that will translate into changing plant and animal species. Our warmer, dryer summers will likely lead to lower water levels in non-tidal ponds, further concentrating nitrogen pollution.

Challenge 9: Energy will be more expensive and scarce.

A growing shortage of oil and concerns about carbon emissions will make fossil fuel-based energy much more expensive in the future. For the Vineyard, this will mean the cost of imported food and other products will go up (making local food and products more competitive.) We are especially vulnerable to rising energy costs, since the Vineyard is inherently energy-inefficient, mainly because our detached, single-family houses are hard to heat and our spread-out settlement makes us car dependent. On the other hand, we have great potential for generating renewable energy, especially through wind resources.

Challenge 10: Globally rare habitat is being fragmented or destroyed.

Over half the Vineyard is habitat for rare and endangered species. While there are somewhat better controls than in previous decades, development and landscaping practices continue to fragment this habitat with buildings and roads or the replacement of native vegetation with large manicured lawns that have little ecological value.

Challenge 11: We’re wasting our waste.

Every year, we ship 40,000 tons of solid waste off-Island. We have basic recycling, but no community composting as is done in Nantucket. We are not equipped to reuse building materials. The fact that we are a small community makes it more difficult to set up sophisticated ways of dealing with solid waste. This is exacerbated by the fact that the Island’s towns are split into two waste management districts, though there have been recent discussions about recombining them. 

Economy

Challenge 12: The economy is “leaking” off-Island.

A considerable portion of our spending, estimated at two thirds of expenditures by year-round residents, is off-Island, meaning these funds are not available to support local businesses and jobs. We import almost all our needs: food, energy, and manufactured goods. A high proportion of our businesses are small and locally owned, but this is threatened from off-Island competition through the Internet, off-Island big-box stores, and the arrival of chain stores on-Island. Recent programs to “buy local” and promote “Island grown” indicate new interest in dealing with this.

Challenge 13: There is a lack of economic diversity.

We have a visitor-based economy (it has been said that our main export is happy visitors). Almost all activity is directly or indirectly related to servicing seasonal residents and visitors through shops and restaurants, real estate, construction, and landscaping. Many of these are service jobs at the low end of the pay spectrum, though wages are somewhat better than off-Island (although this is often offset by the high cost of living.) For the Vineyard, being so dependent on one cluster of industries means our economy is less resilient to economic ups and downs. The fact that this cluster is so seasonal makes it difficult for our non-seasonal businesses to remain viable. Compared to the rest of the Commonwealth, we have relatively few jobs in the most high-paying or fast-growing fields: professional, technical, health, or education.

Challenge 14: Fishing and farming are threatened.

These traditional industries, once central to our economy and lifestyle, have seriously declined. In the 19^th century, most of the Island was farmland. Now there are only about 1,000 acres left, only a third of which is permanently protected. This translates into a loss of jobs and availability of local foods. It also undermines the rural character of the Island represented, in part, by the presence of farms along roadsides, the Farmers Market and the Ag Fair. Similarly, fishing has substantially declined. Menemsha is the last vestige of a fishing industry once central to the Vineyard’s economy and community.

Community

Challenge 15: There is a shortage of affordable, year-round housing.

The attractiveness of the Vineyard to wealthy seasonal residents has driven up the cost of housing dramatically in recent years. In the past decade, the median home price has more than tripled to $650,000 (in 2008), which is considered affordable to an individual or family earning $132,000 a year, about three times the Island’s median household income of $57,355.  Ninety one percent of dwellings are owner-occupied, detached, single-family homes, creating a shortage of rental housing and of multi-unit housing to serve other needs such as younger people starting out and older people who no longer want to maintain a home. The Island's year-round housing issues are now engaged by an array of organizations acting in collaboration with each other and all six Towns to offer increased rental and ownership opportunities to Island residents. However much more must be done to maintain a viable, year-round community.

Challenge 16: The cost of living is very high.

Due mainly to the high cost of housing, the overall cost of living is approximately 57% higher than the national average and 12% higher than Boston. This is partly due to higher transportation costs, and the higher cost of doing business here because of the seasonal economy and the high cost of labor.

Challenge 17: There is a widening gap between groups.

The Vineyard has a diverse population, but there is concern that we are increasingly becoming a collection of separate communities based on income, seasonality, and ethnicity. Seasonal residents are a vital part of the community. Many take an active role in Vineyard life, supporting local businesses and non-profits and financially supporting the Island by paying a very large portion of property taxes (though they make fewer demands on services, especially schools, and have no vote). Most seasonal owners and even short-term visitors have a long-lasting relation to Vineyard. Many have been coming for years and feel they are Islanders. Yet, although our community is largely defined by the relation between the seasonal and year-round community, there is a sense of a widening gap between them. Additionally, there are new pressures from a recent influx of a large immigrant, mostly Brazilian population, now estimated at 20% of the year-round population and including a large number of undocumented immigrants. While this new population provides vital services on the Vineyard and adds to our cultural diversity, many of the immigrants have limited communication and involvement with the rest of community.

Challenge 18: The population is aging, and there is a loss of young families. 

The Vineyard’s population is already considerably older than the average for the Commonwealth and is projected to get much older as Island baby-boomers reach their retirement years and seasonal residents move here to retire. The number of people over the age of 70 could more than triple in the next ten years, greatly increasing the need for health and human services. On the other hand, we have a somewhat smaller proportion of young people. The Vineyard is a great place to raise a family, but many young people are finding there is not enough reason to remain or return here, given limited job opportunities and the high cost of housing and living. 

Introduction 1.3: Goals

COMPREHENSIVE GOAL

Make Martha's Vineyard a more sustainable, resilient, diverse, balanced, and self-sufficient community, preserving the Island’s unique natural, rural, and historical character and creating a better future for Vineyarders and the Island itself. Use the Island and manage its development in ways that are compatible with the long-term sustainability and carrying capacities of our natural resources and community.

Overall Goals

1.     Conserve enough of the Vineyard’s distinct ecological regions to retain their biodiversity, to protect the Island’s scenic character, and to support recreational uses.

2.     Restore the ecological vibrancy of salt ponds and bays with healthy expanses of eelgrass, sustainable shellfish populations, and varied recreational opportunities.

3.     Maintain a community that is economically, culturally, and ethnically diverse, remaining intimately connected to the traditional ways of the Vineyard.

4.     Protect the distinct and diverse character of the Island’s six towns, while forging a stronger regional perspective for dealing with Island-wide issues.

5.     Stimulate a vital, balanced, local economy that is more self-reliant and more diverse.

6.     Produce as much of our essentials, such as food and energy, as we can, and convert our waste into useful products.

7.     Sustain our year-round community by addressing housing affordability and the high cost of living.

8.     Direct development to town and village areas and limit building in environmentally sensitive areas.

9.     Reinforce compact, mixed-use, walkable town and village centers.

10.   Ensure that new building is compatible in its scale, siting, and design with its surroundings.

The rest of the Island Plan outlines more specific objectives in each of nine topic areas, as well as 201 specific strategies for achieving them.

Though at first glance it may seem that some of these goals, objectives, and strategies may be in conflict, for the most part they are mutually reinforcing. Achieving greater diversity and balance will make a stronger, more resilient community, economy, and natural environment, better able to withstand whatever surprises come our way, from a global financial crisis to global warming. Resolving apparent conflicts often comes down to making sure we do the right thing in the right place. Protecting more environmentally significant land as open space doesn’t conflict with affordable housing, because that is not where these projects should be built.

An important and exciting principle underlying the Island Plan is that we can not only ensure that future development better responds to community needs, but we can repair many errors of the past, such as by bringing polluted coastal ponds back to health, by restoring fragmented habitat, and by reestablishing scenic beauty.

 

Introduction 1.4: Summary of Recommendations

Development & Growth

Current zoning, available land, and growth trends could create a very different Vineyard from the one we know today, and from what people say they want. We should manage future development and growth differently, in order to preserve the Martha's Vineyard that we all treasure.

Based on available land and current zoning, this trend of spreading out development will accelerate in the future, with almost half of new development scattered across the countryside, compared to a quarter before 1970 and a third from 1970 to 2005.

The Island Plan prepared three scenarios outlining a range of possibilities for future growth, with varying amounts and locations of development.

§  Present Trends – buildout based on present zoning on available land (78% more houses),

§  Modest Growth – based on a reduction in development, especially in environmentally sensitive areas (30% more houses), and

§  No Net Growth – with very little additional development, offset by “undevelopment” in other areas (0% more houses).

Comparing the impacts of these scenarios illustrates why continuing the trends of the past thirty years is not sustainable or desirable. Developing all available land as presently permitted under existing zoning would result in excessive growth that would undermine those characteristics of Martha's Vineyard that residents and visitors treasure the most.

Preparation of the Island Plan involved extensive analysis and detailed mapping of the Island according to a variety of interrelated criteria (natural environment, water resources, built environment, hazard mitigation, housing suitability, and economic development suitability) to produce a Land Use Guidance Map.


KEY PROPOSALS

Preserve and reinforce the traditional settlement pattern of the Island.

This includes avoiding new areas of commercial development, new town centers or large, dense neighborhoods in other parts of the Island. We should also improve and restore problematic recent development by restoring destroyed or fragmented habitat and by transforming the newer car-oriented, single-use commercial areas into mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented areas better linked to the historic town centers.

 

Reduce the amount of future development, especially in environmentally sensitive areas.

Achieving this objective for the whole Island or for specific areas will involve using a combination of techniques dealing directly with density, such as adopting the Vineyard Land Use Guidance Map; changing minimum lot sizes; revising subdivision regulations; increasing tax incentives for land preservation, changing the rate of open space acquisition; extending infrastructure in growth areas while limiting infrastructure connections in conservation areas; setting up redevelopment programs for “opportunity areas” and considering setting up a system of Transfer of Development Rights. In addition, many of the other strategies throughout the Island Plan will also result in less overall new development.

 

Reduce the rate of development.

We should implement “rate of growth” regulations for several reasons. It would keep a steady rate of construction work without debilitating peaks or valleys. It would lead to more open space preservation by giving the community more time to acquire land before it is all developed. It could improve the quality of development projects by giving priority within an annual quota to desirable projects, such as affordable housing or locations served by town infrastructure. It would give the community time to absorb and adjust to the impacts of development and, if necessary, to modify growth management policies to deal with problems as they emerge.

 

Ensure that development and redevelopment projects are better planned and designed.

Other sections of the Island Plan discuss a variety of tools for improving projects, such as by better protecting environmentally significant areas, increasing housing affordability, respecting community character, and minimizing visual impact in significant viewsheds and vistas. In general, these involve requiring: review for projects that might be more problematic or are in sensitive locations while streamlining desirable projects; providing density incentives for desirable development; and setting up a system of mitigation fees to reduce and offset a project’s impacts.  

 

 

Built Environment

Martha’s Vineyard’s unique, coherent, high-quality built environment is threatened by demolition of significant older buildings, construction of new buildings that are too big, don’t fit their surroundings, and/or are not environmentally sound.

Martha's Vineyard’s beautiful, historic, and cohesive built environment is among the most remarkable in the country and is an important part of the scenic beauty at the heart of the Island’s character, identity, and visitor-based economy. We need to preserve this distinct character and promote environmentally sound building. This includes ensuring that each neighborhood and streetscape is reinforced, not undermined, by new development. It also means strengthening our dynamic, historic downtowns, and modifying our newer commercial areas with preservation and careful infill.

A TARGET ENsure that new buildings fit their context by tailoring zoning to reflect each neighborhood’s characteristics and by extending design review to all historic areas and traditional neighborhoods.

 SOME KEY PROPOSALS

Protect historic resources and ensure that new development is compatible.

This includes culturally significant buildings, streetscapes, and areas. We should enlarge historic districts to protect all historic areas and traditional neighborhoods and revise zoning in historic areas and traditional neighborhoods to conform to historic patterns.

Protect community character by ensuring that buildings fit into their context.

This is especially important along roads and public waters. It should be done in a way that also allows for some creativity and flexibility. We should:

§   set up project review processes along Scenic Roads and Public Waters Viewsheds, and for high-impact buildings based on size or other criteria;

§   revise zoning requirements in neighborhoods to conform to existing character, and

§   set up municipal tree-planting programs.

 

Promote environmentally sound building.

We should implement “green-building” techniques:

§   Setting energy/green-building standards for new construction and major renovations,

§   Establishing a program to encourage energy/green-building standards for existing buildings, and

§   Ensuring that renewable energy facilities are compatible with historic and community character.

We should also minimize the general ongoing environmental impacts of building usage on its surroundings, by:

§   Requiring dark sky compliant lighting,

§   Limiting use of toxins and nuisances, and

§   Setting up new procedures to oversee the construction process.

 

Redevelop “opportunity areas”.

These are areas identified in the Plan where substantial change is anticipated that could positively transform their character (e.g. Upper State Road). The aim is to improve the quality of the physical environment, make them work more efficiently, and incorporate compact mixed-use. We should prepare an urban design plan for each area, modify zoning as required, make public improvements, and encourage private development.

 

 

Energy and Waste

 

Rising fuel costs and increasing environ-mental concerns make us more aware of the high costs and unsustain-ability of bringing virtually all our energy to the Island and transporting away virtually all our waste. Energy and waste offer huge potential to establish sustainable practices that will also generate local employment. The goal is to ensure the Vineyard community has reliable, secure, ample, and affordable energy supplies to meet its needs, obtains as much energy as possible from renewable sources, and transforms a maximum amount of our waste into useful resources. 

A TARGET CUT PROJECTED ENERGY USE BY HALF USING EFFICIENCY MEASURES FOR BUILDINGS AND TRANSPORTATION, AND PRODUCE OR OFFSET THE REST, MAINLY FROM COMMUNITY-OWNED, OFF-SHORE WIND TURBINES. (E.G. ABOUT FIFTY, 500’-HIGH TURBINES).

 SOME KEY PROPOSALS

 

Reduce energy used in buildings.

Buildings are the main source of energy consumption on the Island, using 30% for heating/cooling and 33% for electricity. Energy efficiency measures could reduce our usage by at least half. We should:

§   Adopt standards in our building codes requiring greater energy efficiency in new construction,

§   Institute energy audits and upgrades for commercial buildings and when homes are sold (supported through a revolving fund), and

§   Implement energy pricing structures that encourage energy efficiency.

 

Pursue local generation of renewable energy at both utility and small scales.

The Vineyard’s wind energy potential is among the best on the East Coast.  The most efficient way we can harness this energy is with large, utility-scale wind facilities. We should:

§   Develop a legal structure to allow for private investment in local energy generation facilities,

§   Establish an electrical cooperative or Island utility company, and designate the best sites for clustering wind turbines, whether offshore or land-based.

At the small scale, we should:

§   Ensure that new dwellings are sited and designed to incorporate renewable sources now or in the future, and

§   Develop information and incentive programs for property owners to encourage on-site energy generation.

 

Reverse the growth in motor vehicle miles traveled and reduce the related amount of gasoline used.

Transportation accounts for a third of our energy use. This can be reduced by promoting transit, bicycle, walking, and encouraging people to drive less (see Transportation). Promoting the use of energy-efficient vehicles for cars and transit vehicles would further reduce our carbon emissions.

Generate less waste materials and convert most waste into useful resources with an integrated, Island-wide program of waste management.

§   The first step in dealing with solid waste is to generate less. We should provide ways to reuse or re-purpose materials - including minimizing the demolition of homes - and make recycling easier.

§   We should also develop a coordinated Island-wide waste management system to implement better waste treatment techniques such as an Island-wide composting facility to compost sewage sludge, construction debris and other organic wastes. 

 

 

Housing

 

In the past decade, the cost of housing has soared to such levels that many year-round residents and seasonal workers are unable to find adequate housing. Businesses have increasing difficulty retaining the workforce they need.  To maintain a healthy and economically diverse community, we need to continue to provide a full range of housing options, for the year-round population, including housing geared for low-income families, rental housing, and housing for the elderly.

The housing affordability gap between home costs and what families can afford has reached crisis proportions. Year-round residents are forced to do the “Island shuffle” – vacating their winter housing between May and September to look for temporary shelter.  Considerable effort will be needed to respond to the pressing housing needs simply not met by the private market, namely general affordable/community housing, seasonal workforce housing, and housing for seniors and others needing assisted living.

A TARGET MAKE 10% OF OUR YEAR-ROUND HOUSING STOCK PERMANENTLY AFFORDABLE TO PEOPLE EARNING LESS THAN THE AREA MEDIAN INCOME, AND ANOTHER 10% AFFORDABLE TO THOSE EARNING UP TO 150% AMI (ABOUT 650 DWELLING UNITS IN EACH CATEGORY FOR THE MODEST GROWTH SCENARIO).

SOME KEY PROPOSALS

Allow additional density for new affordable and community housing in appropriate locations.

This would create hundreds of extra housing units that are permanently deed-restricted for affordable housing (under 80% of Area Median Income) or community housing (under 150% AMI). We should:

§   Allow an additional “accessory” affordable housing unit on appropriate properties,

§   Allow multi-unit community housing in certain areas,

§   Adopt demolition delay bylaws to encourage house preservation or reuse, and

§   Establish amnesty programs to address the issue of illegal apartments.

Increase funding for affordable and community housing.

Since much of this housing is subsidized, it needs additional reliable ongoing sources of revenue. We could accomplish much of this by:

§   Encouraging each town to adopt a Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

§   Creating the Martha's Vineyard Housing Bank.

§   Providing tax incentives to owners who rent housing units on a year-round basis.

§   Seeking Island-wide cost-sharing for infrastructure and services,

§   Requiring affordable housing mitigation for market development projects, and

§   Considering taxing weekly housing rentals.

Streamline the planning and management of affordable housing efforts.

Several proposed methods include coordinating the affordable/community housing application process, and considering measures to reduce legal challenges to affordable housing projects.

 

Encourage public-private partnerships to address seasonal workforce housing needs.

Private and public sectors should work together to create dormitory or other housing for the influx of 5,000 seasonal workers. We could also consider revising zoning to allow more recreational camping.

 

Increase the supply of housing for seniors and others needing assisted living housing.

The huge increase in the number of elderly people on the Vineyard will mean we need to increase services to those who want to age at home (see Social Environment) and will also have to substantially increase the amount of elderly housing and assisted living communities for seniors.

 

 

Livelihood & Commerce

 

The main thrust of our effort should be to strengthen and balance the economy, to support local ownership, to replace imports by exports especially of such essentials as food and energy, and to increase year-round jobs with living wages.

The Vineyard economy is largely driven by its vacationers and seasonal residents, through their spending, donations, and taxes. We need to keep this part of the economy – hospitality, construction, and real estate - robust, vital, and responsive to changing needs.  At the same time, a more diverse and stronger year-round economy would be good for Island residents. The goal is to help year-round residents live meaningful and productive lives and help build a vibrant economy that inspires, welcomes, and enables those who grow up here to stay or return.

SOME KEY PROPOSALS

Promote business development to diversify and balance the economy and to generate interesting, meaningful, career path jobs.

We should start new businesses that provide good, year-round jobs, while strengthening and gradually realigning our traditional core industries.

We should develop the creative stewardship of the Island’s rich natural resource base by expanding farming and fishing, by developing new strategies to harness local renewable energy resources, and by encouraging the business community to actively celebrate and support the Island’s beauty and heritage, and its non-profit sector.

We should promote the expansion of other new business opportunities appropriate to the Vineyard, emphasizing initiatives that are environmentally benign or restorative by:

·   Providing entrepreneurial training, mentorship, and technical support to sole-proprietors and micro-businesses in the for-profit sector;

·   Creating new financial mechanisms such as a revolving loan fund to promote investment in local enterprise;

·   Facilitating remote work and telecommuting;

·   Strengthening the health and human service sector to meet the needs of an aging population and growing number of retirees; and

·   Establishing and marketing a Martha’s Vineyard “brand”.

At the same time, we should strengthen and gradually re-align our core, visitor-based economic activities with the other purposes of the Island Plan. For example, we should create a world-class “heritage” tourism program. We should also consider the potential impact of chain businesses on the Island character and economy, and consider regulating them.

Use the community’s buying power to keep more dollars circulating within the local economy.

We should keep more money from our expenditures circulating on-Island to multiply positive impacts on the community’s overall economic health.  An integrated “buy local” campaign should include the significant non-retail sectors (e.g. financing and insurance). We should establish an Island-based buying coop to provide Islander discounts for products and services that must be obtained off-Island.

Locate commercial activities appropriately and ensure there is sufficient commercial land for future needs.

This involves:

§   Keeping retail activities and visitor services concentrated in vibrant, walkable, areas within town centers,

·   Ensuring each town center has a full range of essential anchor businesses,

·   Ensuring there is sufficient land to satisfy the range of needed commercial activities,

·   Ensuring home businesses are compatible with their surrounding neighborhoods.

 

 

Natural Environment

 

Over 40% of the open space we take for granted on the Vineyard could be developed. Some favorite vistas could be blocked, wild stretches of tree-canopied rural roads could become rows of houses with front lawns, and farm fields could become subdivisions.  Over time, areas of open land still large enough to support a rich population of plants and animals could be so fragmented – with a road here, a house and lawn there – that their biodiversity, and even the survival of some extremely rare species, is threatened. We need to better protect the remaining open spaces, vistas, farms, and habitat; we can also go a long way to restoring areas that have been compromised in the past.

Targets double the natural habitat in the five Eco-Regions critical for biodiversity. create a continuous greenway/trail network that extends from one end of the Vineyard to the other, with cross links to the north and south shores.  grow enough food to meet at least 20% of our year-round needs.

 

SOME KEY PROPOSALS

Safeguard the most important natural areas of the Island as open space.

Strategies to increase acquisition of open space include: establishing clear standards for MVC and local regulatory boards to require partial open space protection as properties are developed; working with property owners and public entities to restore and manage their lands in ways that further open space goals, giving tax abatements for open space preservation; and establishing a program allowing long-term voluntary undevelopment of critical natural properties.

 

Restore and maintain conditions to support viable populations of the Vineyard’s native species.

To protect Minimum Viable Landscapes in the Island’s five eco-regions, we should adopt performance standards to maintain their biodiversity, including limiting habitat destruction and fragmentation, and specialized management techniques such as prescribed burnings. We should cultivate a culture of stewardship; by establishing a program facilitating Landscaping the Vineyard Way, and promoting stewardship to students and the public. 

 

Provide recreational enjoyment of natural lands and waters.

We should increase opportunities for residents and visitors to enjoy open space by: setting up an Access Revival Initiative to re-establish public shoreline access and securing new access; extending the Greenway/Trail network from Gay Head to Chappaquiddick with cross connections to the north and south shores; encouraging landowners to allow more access; ensuring there is a public open space within walking distance of town-dwellers and bringing the greenway network close to neighborhoods; providing continuous waterfront access in the centers of the Down-Island towns.

 

Protect and restore the distinctive natural character and scenic values of Martha’s Vineyard.

We should protect roadside and coastal vistas and viewsheds by carefully managing developments with significant visual impacts.  Site plan review is an effective tool, along with some numeric standards and outright prohibitions.  Public buildings and grounds should be made to lead the way, showcasing good examples instead of bad.

Increase farming, fishing, and food production.

We should increase efforts to protect and increase farmland by setting up an Agricultural Commission to facilitate all aspects of farming, increasing food production per acre, using value-added techniques to transform some harvested crops into other food products, and facilitating distribution, promotion, and marketing of local food. We should increase fishing by restoring pond health, by expanding aquaculture and seeding ponds, and by providing dock space and infrastructure for commercial fishing.

 

Prepare for climate change.

In addition to doing our share to reduce climate change, we must plan how to adapt to its inevitable impacts. This includes limiting construction in risk-prone areas, retrofitting existing structures and infrastructure, and carrying out comprehensive pre-disaster planning and mitigation.

 

 

Social Environment

Vineyard life reflects small-town America. It is marked by strong community connections, a high level of public involvement and empowerment, strong attachment to the land and sea, and a special relation between year-round and seasonal residents. Behind the rural façade is a community of great sophistication. The Vineyard’s insularity and desirability as place to visit and live are both a strength and a challenge. We will need a concerted effort to maintain a viable, diverse, year-round community. We also should not only provide good health, educational and human services, but also give the community opportunities to make healthy living, lifetime learning, and cultural expression integral parts of daily life.

 

Concerns have been raised about community changes, such as increased polarization by income, the threatened loss of the middle class, the rapidly aging population and the decrease in the number of families with children. Poverty, mental illness, and substance abuse incident rates exceed levels in much of the Commonwealth. The low population density leads to heavy car use, less walking, and more isolated living situations. The isolation and limited population of the Island make it difficult to offer a full range of medical services and educational services and, combined with the high cost of housing and living, makes it hard to attract, train, and retain specialized personnel. 

 

SOME KEY PROPOSALS

Maintain the Vineyard’s strong sense of community and inclusiveness, preserve the economic continuum, and increase understanding among groups.

Measures to preserve the diversity of Vineyard in terms of year-round/seasonal, income, age, ethnicity, color, and understanding between groups should include:

§   improving coordination among institutions and town boards to deal with social environment issues,

§   reaching out to the Brazilian community, and

§   providing information to new residents and visitors about Vineyard services and practices.

Make Martha's Vineyard a healthy community.

The aim is to create a healthy and supportive environment in which people develop physically, mentally and socially and to improve human and infrastructure capacity to provide necessary health and human services that are seamless, complementary, coordinated and accessible by:

§   Providing more education to and support of family caregivers,

§   Improving availability of daycare,

§   Creating a structure to address public health issues Island-wide,

§   Creating walkable neighborhoods and communities.

Turn the whole Vineyard into a school-without-walls.

This involves opening schools to the community and the community to broader education by providing excellent quality, community-based K-12 education for students in the school system, and encouraging and enabling all residents and visitors to pursue education throughout their lives. Strategies include:

§   Providing greater vocational training in schools geared to employment opportunities on the Island and away,

§   Providing more opportunities for community-based education for school students,

§   Increasing professional development programs, and

§   Providing more post secondary education for residents and visitors.

Increase coordination and support of the arts and culture community.  

Martha’s Vineyard has a strong arts community that would be improved by bringing various groups together to foster cultural expression, to support the diverse for-profit and non-profit arts sector, to promote Vineyard culture to the local and visiting community, and to increase cultural tourism, by creating an Arts/Cultural Collaborative to support and coordinate cultural activities (with projects such as a Vineyard Arts website and setting up an Island-wide Arts Festival) and offering more courses and workshops.

 

 

 

Transportation

We must take measures to accommodate the increasing number of people coming to and moving around the Island, including the summer influx, without altering the network of two-lane rural roads essential to the Island’s character. The goal is to reduce dependence on private automobiles and promote alternate modes of travel – bus, bicycle, and walking – for both residents and visitors.

The relatively spread-out settlement on much of the Island makes it more challenging to offer alternative means of transportation to the car, especially outside town centers. Nevertheless, we’ve done well in promoting alternative transportation, such as expanding the VTA from a seasonal shuttle service carrying 71,000 people in 1997 to a year-round service carrying over a million in 2008. We need to do more to improve transit, biking, and pedestrian facilities, including better promotion and using mitigation fees on development projects.

A TARGET WE SHOULD EXPAND THE USE OF ALTERNATIVE MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION TO ABSORB ALL FUTURE GROWTH, SO THERE IS NO OVERALL INCREASE IN CAR USE.

 

 

SOME KEY PROPOSALS

Improve the efficiency and promotion of the Island’s buses, taxis, and ferries. 

We should:

§   Create public-private alliances to improve and promote alternative transportation,

§   Develop plans to expand bus service including uptown-downtown shuttles,

§   Implement a hybrid taxi/bus service,

§   Better integrate the Steamship Authority into Island transportation planning initiatives,

§   Offer detailed trip planners,

§   Improve taxi regulations, training, quality, and dispatching, and

§   Consider rebranding the transit system.

 

Make town and village areas more pedestrian and bicycle friendly and expand and enhance a safe and efficient network of off-road bicycle paths, on-road bicycle routes, and walking trails.

We should

§   Create a working group in each town to outline and implement a pedestrian/bicycle improvement program, including sidewalks and crosswalks, and bike parking.

§   Require public review of road repair and improvements to ensure that they include opportunities for pedestrian/bicycle improvements.

§   Fill in the gaps in the current 37-mile network of off-road bike paths (Shared User Paths) and improve the safety of existing ones with better buffers and signage.

§   Carry out safety improvements for on-road biking, such as wider shoulders, and should extend the network of walking trails.

Use physical traffic calming techniques to slow traffic and improve safety in neighborhoods.

We should create work groups in each town to outline and implement measures such as road narrowing, safety islands, and speed humps.

Minimize road congestion and improve safety without compromising road character and scenic roadside views.

We should address problems at the Island’s most dangerous and congested road locations, favoring management rather than physical solutions. We should also address the shortage of parking in town centers during the summer.

 

 

Water Resources

 

 

We are fortunate to have a vast supply of fresh groundwater many times the amount we can foresee ever needing. More problematic is the deterioration of the water quality in our fragile coastal ponds as a result of excessive nitrogen, coming largely from wastewater. The goal is to maintain the quality and quantity of our water resources, from our taps to our ponds.

The Island’s twenty-one coastal ponds are important for commercial and recreational shellfishing, for boating, and as habitat. Their 290 miles of waterfront provide public and private beaches, and highly desirable settings for homeowners. We must protect groundwater quality where we draw drinking water and ensure that public water supply pumping and distribution infrastructure keeps pace with demand. Wastewater regulations are designed to protect public health, but since ponds are more sensitive to nitrogen than humans, we will have to bring nitrogen levels down far more to restore the health of ponds and other surface waters. The wastewater from our rapid growth over the past generation has degraded the quality of some of our groundwater and surface waters so that of our 21 coastal ponds, 8 are now impaired, and 5 are compromised.  Eelgrass health is the best indicator of good quality surface and ground water; the roughly 3000 acres of eelgrass in the 1950s has now plummeted to about 1500 acres.

SOME TARGETS RESTORE THE HEALTH OF OUR COASTAL PONDS BY LIMITING GROWTH IN SENSITIVE WATERSHEDS, BY IMPROVING WASTEWATER TREATMENT THROUGH INCREASED USE OF PUBLIC SEWERS OR SMALL-SCALE NEIGHBORHOOD TREATMENT SYSTEMS, AND BY INCREASING POND WATER CIRCULATION THROUGH DREDGING AND MORE FREQUENT OPENINGS TO THE SEA.

 

SOME KEY PROPOSALS

Expand public water supply and protect supply recharge areas.

We should plan for expansion of public water supply – presently serving 2/3 of homes – especially to areas with more than one house per acre. Future water demand will require identifying and protecting new public well sites, mainly in and around the Correllus State Forest. In less dense areas unlikely to be served by public water, we should strengthen regulations and monitoring of private wells to protect water quality.

 

Treat and dispose of wastewater in a manner that protects our water resources.

Wastewater is the largest source of nitrogen pollution that can be controlled at the local level.  It is the cause of declining water quality in our ponds.  We need to treat wastewater to support sustainable drinking water supplies, protect public health, and protect surface water resources. We should prepare a Wastewater Management Plan, preferably Island wide or, at least watershed-based to identify the most cost-effective solutions, which will probably include: A combination of expanded sewers -- offering centralized or package wastewater treatment -- in higher density areas, and cluster treatment systems in more isolated areas.  Possibly using individual on-site systems with advanced nitrogen removal in some areas. The cost will likely be more than $100 million to deal with the present situation, and could be several times that with future growth.

Minimize direct discharge of stormwater runoff into sensitive water resources.

By retaining stormwater on site and allowing for infiltration to replenish groundwater instead of running it directly into coastal waters, we can largely remove bacteria, silt, oil products, heavy metals and even nitrogen from stormwater discharges at relatively low cost.

We should set up a program to identify and correct problematic stormwater discharges from roads and other public lands; to require development and redevelopment projects to maximize treatment and infiltration in order to retain all stormwater on site; to incorporate Low Impact Development techniques into project review; to enforce impervious surface lot coverage limits, and to put in place stormwater system design and maintenance programs to limit treatment and disposal problems.

Increase management of coastal ponds and their watersheds to reduce nitrogen loads and allow eelgrass recovery. 

As sound data becomes available from the Mass Estuaries Project we should set up management committees to prepare plans for each coastal pond that would find the most cost effective ways to restore pond health, such as improving water circulation through dredging, removal of tidal restrictions and increased managed openings to the sea, increasing shellfish production in coastal ponds by increasing habitat area and quality; and reducing bacterial contamination that closes shellfish beds.