A superior court trial that is expected to test the broad powers of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission to control development on the Vineyard got underway Tuesday morning in the Edgartown courthouse.
Johanna Schneider and Pat Moore, partners at Hemenway & Barnes in Boston, are representing the MVC.
— Mark Alan Lovewell
Douglas K. Anderson and Richard G. Matthews, two developers based in Salt Lake City, Utah, are appealing the commission’s 2020 denial of the Meeting House Place subdivision in Edgartown.
“We are all environmentalists here. We all want to protect Martha’s Vineyard,” said Edward (Terry) Dangel, the lawyer representing the developers, in opening statements Tuesday. “But the institutions that are supposed to protect us must function fairly, in accordance with the law.”
“The plaintiff . . . claims that the commission should have fixed its concededly flawed proposal,” countered Johanna Schneider, attorney for the commission, in her opening statement. “That position has no support in any case involving the commission.”
The Hon. Paul D. Wilson, an associate justice of the superior court, is presiding over the bench trial, which is expected to run through early next week.
A long list of witnesses are scheduled to be called, including MVC executive director Adam Turner, who was in the courtroom Tuesday as well as the developers.
The opening arguments revealed two different views of the regional land use commission, created by an act of the state legislature nearly 50 years ago. Mr. Dangel painted a picture of an agency that issues arbitrary decisions based on the whims of commissioners, sometimes in conflict with its own guidelines. The result is an elected body which has strayed too far from its mission, he said.
“They’ve been in existence for 48 years and for 48 years they’ve been unwilling to tell people, this is how big your house can be, ” Mr. Dangel said. “They keep it close to the vest.”
Ms. Schneider highlighted the commission’s unique mission as a state-chartered planning agency. “We are honored to represent the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, which is a creature unique in state law,” she said. She described the MVC’s role in weighing the benefits and detriments of developments it reviews. In order to accomplish that goal it needs wide latitude to interpret projects, which is exactly what it did with Meeting House, she said.
“The commission’s very reason for being is that the legislature determined that market demand for development did not adequately protect the unique and natural environment of the Island,” Ms. Schneider said. “The court owes substantial deference to the commission.”
Terry Dangel, an Edgartown-based attorney (far left), represents the Meeting House Place developers.
— Mark Alan Lovewell
Mr. Dangel too zeroed in on the benefits and detriments issue. When Mr. Anderson and Mr. Matthews initially presented their plan, it called for 36 market rate homes. The final plan was chaged to 28 market rate homes plus a cluster of 14 town homes priced below market rate. The commission denied the project, despite the developers changing everything from the number of units to the landscaping plan to satisfy commissioners, he said.
“We’re going to ask you to say it’s more of a benefit than a detriment,” he told the judge.
Ms. Schneider said the development was too big for the area, repeatedly calling it out of scale. And while the idea of the affordable townhouses was laudable, she said it fell short of affordable housing standards Islandwide.
“That the commission would consider these facts was a surprise to precisely nobody,” Ms. Schneider said.
After opening statements, the judge, the superior court clerk and a gaggle of attorneys on both sides drove to the development site in the rural perimeters of Edgartown for a view.
In the afternoon Mr. Dangel began to present his case, calling John Larsen, an Edgartown attorney and title examiner, and Steven Vetere, an environmental engineer and wastewater expert, as witnesses.
The trial resumes Wednesday at 9 a.m.
Judge Wilson, who has extensive experience with land-use law, has traveled to the Island from Boston to hear the case, which is the first major legal challenge to the commission statute in decades. At the outset the judge told both attorneys the issues in the case interested him.
“[And hearing] what the Martha’s Vineyard Commission is all about,” he said.
