A unanimous vote by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission Thursday has cleared the way for the town of Oak Bluffs to proceed with a long-sought plan to reinforce the eroding bluffs along East Chop Drive.
The commission approved an earlier version of the project in 2018 and later granted an extension to 2026. Changes to the plans necessitated the town come back to the commission.
Much of East Chop Drive has been closed to motor vehicles since 2018, due to fears that erosion could make the roadway permanently impassable.
The first phase of the multi-year bluff reinforcement project is expected to begin this fall, with construction taking place between Labor Day and Memorial Day for an estimated 15 months overall.
A $10 million Federal Emergency Management Agency grant, awarded in 2022, and other money approved by Oak Bluffs voters will fund this phase, covering the southernmost 1,200 linear feet of coastline as far as Harrison avenue.
The initial funding also will pay for the infrastructure changes needed for all 2,400 feet of bluff reconstruction, including a temporary pier at the base of the bluff.
At a public hearing last month, project manager Daniel Ciaramicoli of contractor Tighe & Bond told commissioners that his company had discovered “significant constructability and safety issues” with the 2018 plans for stabilizing the bluff, requiring a re-design.
The new plans introduced the temporary pier, where equipment and materials will arrive by barges that also will remove debris, lessening the project’s impact on truck and ferry traffic.
If the town is not able to raise enough funding for the second phase of bluff work by the time phase one is completed, the temporary pier will be removed, according to the MVC decision.
The commission’s approval rests on a number of other conditions as well, including a prohibition against artificial lighting at the construction site apart from navigation safety lights on the pier.
The town also must submit a landscaping plan for revegetating the bluff after construction.
Also Thursday, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission opened two public hearings, each of which was continued to a future date.
Commissioners heard testimony on an application to demolish and replace a house in Vineyard Haven that is evidently older than 1930, its date in town property records. Any demolition of an Island building 100 years or older requires Martha’s Vineyard Commission approval.
According to the Tisbury Historical Commission, the secluded cottage on Massasoit avenue dates from before the 1920s and was moved to West Chop from its original home on Lambert’s Cove.
But the historical commission stopped short of taking a position on whether or not the house should be preserved, Martha’s Vineyard Commission coordinator Rich Salzberg told commissioners Thursday.
Instead, he said, the group wrote a letter offering reasons both for and against a demolition approval.
The historical commission’s main argument for preserving the house was that it holds a connection to the historic Red Lodge property, later known as Mohu, at Lambert’s Cove.
The fact that the house itself is not distinctive should not doom its preservation, the letter continued.
“We cannot preserve the historic fabric of the Island if we only save the large, the striking, and the prominent,” the historical commission wrote.
As an argument for demolition, the letter noted that the house arrived in West Chop after the neighborhood had already developed and is architecturally different from others in the area.
Preservation consultant Eric Dray, who reviewed the building for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, also found little of significance in the architecture.
“If this house did, in fact, begin as a mid-18th to early-19th century Cape, it has been altered from this original form beyond recognition,” Mr. Dray wrote in a report to the MVC.
“In my opinion, based on research conducted to date, this house does not possess historical significance worthy of public interest,” he added later in the report.
Hearing officer Brian Smith continued the public hearing for two weeks to allow commissioners to visit the property.
A hearing on builder Millers Professionals’ application for new storage buildings at the airport business park also was continued.
Owner Ubaldo Miller is seeking to erect two 7,300-square-foot metal warehouses and a 7,000-square-foot office building, with parking, on a lot at 3 South Line Road in Edgartown.
The warehouses, with five vehicle bays apiece, would store equipment and materials but not swimming pool shells, Mr. Salzberg said as he outlined the application.
Mr. Miller told commissioners there would be no manufacturing or fabrication inside the warehouses, which he wants to use for materials currently stored outside at another lot in the business park.
Commissioners said they want to visit the site before continuing the public hearing, which is scheduled to resume March 6.
