A proposed mixed-income housing development near Veterans Memorial Park in Vineyard Haven is under fire from neighbors, who are asking Tisbury officials not to issue a permit for the project.
“The neighborhood is working very hard to push against this,” Susan Lemoie-Zarba told the town planning board Wednesday night, during a discussion on the Cat Hollow apartment complex proposed by the Island Housing Trust.
The trust has proposed building three duplexes on 2.7 acres at 25 Lobster Alley off of Causeway Road. The nonprofit, which purchased the property in 2022, is seeking a general permit from the Tisbury zoning board of appeals under Chapter 40B, a Massachusetts state statute easing some restrictions in local zoning bylaws for construction projects that include affordable housing.
Ms. Lemoie-Zarba and her husband, John Zarba, submitted a neighborhood petition opposing the trust’s application.
“We knocked on a bunch of doors [and] we got 52 signatures in the dead of winter, when half the houses are empty,” Ms. Lemoie-Zarba said.
“There was only one ‘no,’ and that person sits on a board within the town,” she said.
Their petition lists several points in opposition to the Cat Hollow plan, including impacts on traffic, parking and fire safety, increased noise and light pollution and risks to the health of nearby Lagoon Pond.
Two of the six proposed units at Cat Hollow are reserved for sale to year-round residents earning up to 80 per cent of the area median income and will be counted toward Tisbury’s affordable housing inventory, according to the trust’s application.
Another two apartments will be sold to Islanders earning up to 140 per cent of the area median, and two will be priced for a higher income bracket to be determined by construction costs.
An existing three-bedroom house on the property is leased to the Vineyard Transit Authority, which assisted IHT with the $1.5 million purchase in 2022 and has renovated the residence for transit employee housing.
The town zoning board of appeals voted Jan. 23 to refer the Cat Hollow proposal to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, which is expected to decide this month whether or not to consider it a development of regional impact.
The Tisbury planning board is not directly involved in the permitting process, but can submit its comments to the zoning board of appeals, said Ben Robinson, who chaired Wednesday’s meeting in the absence of Connie Anderson and also sits on the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.
“As we see how this process unfolds at the MVC, we’ll have a better sense of the time frame that the planning board will have,” Mr. Robinson said.
Also Wednesday, the planning board voted to approve Reid (Sam) Dunn’s fine dining restaurant at 75 Main Street, in the former lobby of the historic bank property that Mr. Dunn has developed into a mixed-use condominium complex.
The proposed restaurant received Martha’s Vineyard Commission approval as a development of regional impact in December, 2024, sending Mr. Dunn back to town authorities to complete the permitting process.
