In many ways, the Island Plan proposals for the next generation will help keep the Vineyard much as it is today with carefully protected open spaces, vistas, and historic neighborhoods, and with great services. It will still be a vital year-round community, partly because thousands of families can live community and affordable housing.
But in many ways, the Island will be different, and much improved. Though tourism and construction will still be important parts of the economy, many people will have transitioned to well-paying, year-round “green” and knowledge-based jobs, attracting many young people to stay on the Island. Farming and fishing will be revived and feeding a good portion of the population. The equivalent of all our energy will come from a community-owned offshore wind farm. There will be an Island-wide greenway and trail network. New buildings will fit into their neighborhoods.
The full Island Plan outlines how the Vineyard community can turn this vision into reality, utilizing about 201 strategies: business initiatives, educational efforts, incentives, projects, and regulations. Many of these initiatives are already underway; some have informed the Plan, others emerged from the planning process.
We are not alone in taking up this new direction. Recent and upcoming federal and state programs enable and support many of the efforts outlined in the Island Plan. And there are many other communities like us who are creatively taking on similar challenges, and with whom we can share solutions.
Though the Island Plan is not an ongoing entity able to implement any proposals itself, the Steering Committee and Work Groups can help initiate implementation by facilitating meetings of key stakeholders and by assisting efforts as they get underway (with technical assistance by the MVC).
Towns and the MVC could change how they regulate development, using Island Plan policies and maps. The MVC should change its criteria for referring projects to the Commission to ensure that it reviews projects of regional impact, but eliminate the need to refer smaller, less problematic projects.
Periodic monitoring of the community’s progress in implementing the Island Plan will allow us to make the necessary adjustments to reach our objectives, or to revise objectives if they are no longer relevant. The Island Plan website will be transformed to serve as a main focus for monitoring progress.
It could be tempting to feel that nothing can be done to overcome the challenges facing the Vineyard: economic forces are too powerful, Town Meeting won’t support zoning or other changes, we’re already too far gone to save.
But that’s just not the Vineyard way.
Our knowledgeable and highly engaged community has been tested many times in the past, often emerging with our own creative solutions.
We set up the Vineyard Transit Authority and overcame town rivalries to create the Regional High School. We created strong non-profit organizations and the Land Bank, which preserved 40% of the Island as open space. We created hundreds of affordable homes that will be available for generations to come. We set up the Martha's Vineyard Commission, an innovative and effective way to help towns regulate development, later copied to create the Cape Cod Commission. We created grassroots organizations to take on the challenges of housing affordability and energy.
And we can do it again. Instead of letting the Vineyard drift off into a future that isn’t what we want, we can take charge of the Island’s future and change course.
Implementing the recommendations of the Island Plan will lead to a better future for the Vineyard. Your input and support can help make it happen. First, you can give your opinion on this draft plan in the ways described on the next page. Then, you can support implementation by pursuing the new business and job opportunities, by participating in community organizations, and with your vote at Town Meeting as various measures come up for approval, and in the individual choices you make in your home and in your lives.
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