A proposed senior housing development in West Tisbury is back on track after the town temporarily halted the project to deal with a potential $1.4 million funding gap.
The West Tisbury select board on Wednesday awarded the 401 State Road project to the Vineyard-based nonprofit Island Housing Trust, rekindling hopes for the seven-unit project at the corner of State Road and Lambert’s Cove Road.
“We reissued that RFP for many reasons,” select board chair Jessica Miller said at the meeting. “[The] affordable housing committee met last night to discuss the proposal and went through the grading process fairly successfully, and the affordable housing committee did vote to recommend to the select board to award this RFP to IHT.”
Request for proposals lay out the project’s requirements for developers. The board rescinded the previous request for proposals for the project in October because it was too restrictive, leading to higher costs.
In the months since, town officials reworked the RFP. In the new RFP, the town removed a requirement for a common room and allowed the town to access the affordable housing trust, according to town administrator Jennifer Rand.
The project has been hit with setbacks going back several years. The development was initially approved by the voters in 2021, and South Mountain Co. was tapped to spearhead the project. The company pulled out in 2022, citing frustrations with the affordable housing committee.
Later, the town realized the request for proposals only allowed for seven apartments, forcing a design reconfiguration. In response, Island Housing Trust, an Island-based developer and nonprofit, changed the mix of apartments from seven one-bedroom units and two two-bedroom units to four two-bedroom units and three one-bedroom units, all restricted to people over 60.
The new plan pushed costs up from an estimated $4 million to about $5.5 million. The way the previous RFP was drawn up, the town would not have been able to use the town’s affordable housing trust funds, leading to the new RFP.
Had the town gone forward with the initial plan approved last September, town officials likely would’ve had to go to town meeting to ask for nearly $1.5 million more for the project. The last design plan presented and approved by the town consisted of four two-bedroom units and three one-bedroom units.
