In a hostile standoff with the Martha’s Vineyard Commission Thursday night over whether renting out restricted workforce housing as short-term summer rentals violates a condition attached to a prior MVC approval, the owner of the Lampost in Oak Bluffs has agreed to return with a formal request to modify his redevelopment of the Circuit avenue bar.
First approved by the commission in 2017 and modified in 2018, the phased plan eventually resulted in 10 apartments with 22 bedrooms in various configurations on the upper three floors of the building. All were restricted as workforce or year-round housing.
Appearing before the commission Thursday night, owner Adam Cummings acknowledged that he has been renting the apartments out as summer rentals — although not currently.
“We’re not hiding anything,” Mr. Cummings said. “I am not out of compliance.”
The dispute has been brewing since last summer when it came to light that the Lampost apartments were being rented out as Airbnbs, according to commission documents and statements at the online meeting Thursday.
Commissioner Doug Sederholm, who led a committee appointed to investigate the matter, recounted the history of the project, which included conditions restricting the use of the apartments as workforce or year-round housing, and requiring the applicant to submit annual reports showing compliance.
No reports were submitted, Mr. Sederholm said on Thursday. MVC executive director Adam Turner and DRI coordinator Alex Elvin took steps to address the issue with the applicant beginning last June, but made no progress, according to documents and recounted by Mr. Sederholm. Initial emails and letters saw no reply; more recently Mr. Cummings’s Island attorney Geoghan Coogan wrote to the commission, saying that Mr. Cummings is not violating the condition.
On Thursday Mr. Cummings confronted commissioners in the bluntest terms, offering a different account of the events of last summer with Mr. Turner and Mr. Elvin, prompting a sharp rebuke at one point from Mr. Turner.
He also said he had been given no notice that the commission was due to discuss the matter Thursday, and that he had learned about it from the Martha’s Vineyard Times, whom he claimed had rented one of his Airbnbs, although he gave no specifics.
Commissioners took their own tough stance. More than one had been there for the 2017 vote on the Lampost redevelopment as a development of regional impact (DRI).
Commissioner Fred Hancock noted that the workforce housing was proposed by the applicant in the first place. “This was not an affordable housing mitigation; this was their business plan,” he said.
Questions of responsibility on the part of the commission were also raised, and there was brief discussion about the followup process on DRIs.
“Why was this not addressed earlier?” commissioner Ben Robinson said.
But commissioner Jim Vercruysse said the burden is on the applicant, not the MVC, when it comes to compliance with conditions.
“It’s not up to us, it’s the applicant’s responsibility to adhere to the rules,” he said.
After numerous heated exchanges, Mr. Sederholm addressed Mr. Cummings.
“I think we have a difference of opinion when it comes to what workforce housing is,” he said. “If your plan is to go forward and rent these apartments as Airbnbs or something other than Island workforce housing, then we have something to talk about.”
Commissioner Ted Rosbeck appeared to side with Mr. Cummings more than once, suggesting that the commission delay discussion to when a hearing is held on the modification plan.
“Why don’t we just figure it out, why don’t we just discuss it. I think everybody should just take a step back,” Mr. Rosbeck said.
Other commissioners took a different view.
“I move we ask counsel to initiate proceedings . . . this applicant has shown no remorse and plans on continuing doing it and saying he’s going to rent this property to anyone who shows up with a fistful of money,” Mr. Hancock said.
At that point Mr. Sederholm suggested the meeting move into executive session. But chairman Joan Malkin offered Mr. Cummings a narrow middle ground: agree to come back within 30 days with a formal request for modification, and agree to stop renting out the apartments as short-term rentals in the interim.
Mr. Cummings agreed to most of it.
“I have taken reservations for August. I will not take any new ones but I will not cancel the advance reservations,” he said.
The vote by the commission was 12-0 in favor of the motion. Commissioner Brian Packish, who is an Oak Bluffs businessman, recused himself from the discussion at the outset but did not leave the meeting.
