ISLAND PLAN CHARTING THE FUTURE OF THE VINEYARD The Plan Island Plan Steering Committee: James A. Athearn (Chair), John Abrams, Tom Chase, Ann Floyd, Ray Laporte, Ned Orleans, Kerry Scott, Linda Sibley, Elio Silva, Russell Smith, Bret Stearns, Henry Stephenson, Paul Strauss, Richard Toole, Woody Vanderhoop, Susan Wasserman. It was funded by: - The six towns of Martha’s Vineyard - The Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development – District Local Technical Assistance - The Massachusetts Department of Transportation - The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation - The Edey Foundation - The Permanent Endowment Fund for Martha’s Vineyard - Private donors The Island Plan can be downloaded from www.islandplan.org. Copies are available for viewing at all town halls, libraries, and the MVC. A series of technical bulletins (related studies and technical reports) and resource materials The Island Plan is an initiative (background data and model by-laws) is being made available on the website. of, and is coordinated by, the The inclusion of names or images of people or institutions does not imply their Martha’s Vineyard Commission. endorsement of Island Plan recommendations. Adopted by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission on December 10, 2009 Printed February 2010 Island Plan 1-2 table of contents 1. Introduction 2. Development and Growth 3. Natural Environment 4. Built Environment 5. Social Environment 6. Livelihood and Commerce 7. Energy and Waste 8. Housing 9. Transportation 10. Water Resources 11. Implementation Appendices • The Planning Process • List of Island Plan Documents • List of Participants • Glossary Island Plan 1-3 SECTION 1 Isolation and strong actions by the local community have kept malls. People know and take care of their neighbors. A drive out of the Island of Martha’s Vineyard as a special and distinctive place town means passing through woods and fields along curving, tree- in the world. But additional effort will be needed to prevent canopied, two-lane roads rather than through strip malls. excessive or poorly managed growth from undermining the very In many ways, we are so far behind that we are way out ahead. qualities that make people want to live or visit here. However, in other ways, the Vineyard has gone off course. Ironically, Insulated by four miles of ocean, Martha’s Vineyard was until the the Vineyard’s success in preserving its natural beauty and its small- mid-20th century a community with its own manner of doing things. town, New England charm has attracted unprecedented growth It was largely independent and self-reliant, that undermines those very features. As with an economy based largely on fishing, the quality of the environment in much farming, and increasingly on tourism. of the rest of America has deteriorated, Most people lived in villages where they the Vineyard has become an ever more could walk to school, the post office, and attractive tourist destination and place shops. People supported each other in for seasonal homes. The result has been tough times. They could walk freely in a massive rate of growth, far outpacing the countryside, in woods, fields, and on all other regions in Massachusetts except beaches most likely owned by relatives Nantucket. or friends. Change was slow; new While we have successfully managed this residents and buildings fit into the existing development to a large extent, we are community without causing disruption. It not immune to what is happening on the was in many ways the model of what we mainland. Our economy and our way of would now call “sustainable development” living are increasingly part of national or “smart growth.” systems; we are almost completely Even today, visitors are amazed to find dependent on imports of food, energy, a place where the environment and and manufactured goods. The costs of lifestyle have been touched more lightly housing and living are soaring faster by modern life than in most of America. than off-Island. Rapid growth, channeled Though the Island has changed in the by off-Island-style zoning regulations, past generation, strong and conscious community action has done has led to suburban sprawl, to pollution of coastal ponds, and a much better job of maintaining the Island’s distinct, high quality to fragmentation and destruction of vast swaths of globally rare physical and social identity and character than in most other places. habitat. We retain many characteristics that other communities are now These changes are making the Island more and more like striving to create. Community life is still largely centered on main everywhere else, threatening to undermine our quality of life, our streets and rural general stores rather than suburban shopping visitor-based economy, and all our livelihoods. Island Plan 1-4 INTRODUCTION The purpose of the Island Plan is to chart a course to the kind of future the Vineyard community wants, and to outline a series of actions to help us navigate that course. Since 2006, thousands of Island residents have participated through eight work groups, dozens of forums, and a series of surveys in defining what the Vineyard is and what it could be. Islanders have examined the challenges facing the Vineyard and set proposals to deal with those challenges. The Island Plan gives members of the community the opportunity to step back from daily routines, look at where the Vineyard is heading, and identify how to readjust our direction. (The planning process is detailed in Appendix 1.) Although the challenges are clearly significant, the Island Plan describes a confident vision for the future that reasserts many of the traditional principles that have shaped the Vineyard’s community, economy, environment, and land in the past. The Plan outlines how we can guide the ongoing evolution of Martha’s Vineyard so it best meets the needs of the people and of the Island itself. The Island Plan is both a blueprint and a call to action. Island Plan 1-5 introduction (including ponds) Island Plan 1-6 Island Plan 1-7 introduction 1.1 Successes The Island has many strengths worth recognizing and holding onto. • The Vineyard has maintained a strong sense of community, where people will pitch in to help a family facing sickness or fire, or to build an Agricultural Hall. • The Vineyard has in many ways managed to keep the Island’s rural character and a considerable amount of open space. • The Vineyard has preserved the distinct character of each town, from the unique streetscape of each main street to the different way each town government works. • The Vineyard has retained mostly small, locally-owned businesses and banks, with no big-box stores and almost no chain stores. • The Vineyard still has farming and fishing which provide local, fresh food, and contribute to the Vineyard’s character. • The Vineyard remains a diverse community with year-round and seasonal residents, with a large range of income levels, and with a variety of ethnic groups. its negative impacts as discussed in the next section). Our good • The Vineyard has good municipal services – schools, police, fire, services are thanks in large part to the financial support of seasonal EMT, libraries – as well as good hospital and medical/community residents who pay a considerable portion of town taxes and are services. generous contributors to Island nonprofits. • The Vineyard Transit Authority carries a million passengers a year. If you think traffic is bad now, imagine if all those trips were being made by car. • The Vineyard has significant wealth – property values of over $18 billion and an “annual gross domestic product” of over $800 million – which makes many good things possible (though it is not without Island Plan 1-8 1.2 Challenges Martha’s Vineyard is a wonderful place, but it is on a course that threatens many of the features we treasure most, unless we act. This section outlines the key challenges that the Vineyard faces today, or will face in the future, as a result of continuing trends and off-Island forces. Many are related to continued development and changing population. The remainder of the Island Plan will describe how we can deal effectively with these challenges, by working together on a clear new course of action. Challenge 1: Growth is unsustainable. Over the past forty years, the Vineyard has faced massive growth, with the population increasing from 6,034 in 1970 to about 15,444 today. Though we’ve managed this growth better than most places, it has significantly changed the Island and our way of life. This amount of development cannot be sustained, because it is the fundamental cause of many of our other challenges listed below, such as traffic congestion and pollution in ponds. Also, since the Island is of limited size, we have to face the fact that we simply cannot grow indefinitely. Island Plan 1-9 introduction to serious gridlock for much of the year. We have successfully Land avoided widening roads (other than the widening of the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven and Edgartown-West Tisbury Roads) or Challenge 2: Character and scenic values are putting in traffic lights that would undermine the Island’s character. deteriorating. However, increased traffic will increase The Island’s visual character – a pressure to make these types of road combination of scenic roads, exquisitely “improvements.” Growth in the bus beautiful natural areas, and small town system is constrained by financial New England architecture – is both at the limitations. We have 37 miles of off- core of our sense of ourselves and the road bike paths, but there are gaps at key to attracting visitors. The addition of critical places in the network and on- many small changes – a large new house road bicycle accommodation is deficient here, a roadside stockade fence there in many locations.