Cramped, outdated public buildings, vaguely-worded bylaws and a lack of housing policies are among the obstacles to progress that came up during a virtual presentation to Tisbury’s master plan steering committee.
Before Tisbury can plan for its future, the town needs to reckon with a legacy of more than three centuries without a governing strategy. This fact was laid bare recently as planning consultants, who have spent the past half-year gathering public comment and copious data for an inventory of Tisbury’s weaknesses and strengths, presented their initial findings.
The town’s advantages include its all-seasons economy, with nearly 83 per cent of businesses in town open year-round, and steadier employment than other Island towns.
But Tisbury also has a lot of room to improve, the consultants said.
Cramped, outdated public buildings, vaguely-worded bylaws and a lack of housing policies are among the obstacles to progress that came up during a virtual presentation to Tisbury’s master plan steering committee last week.
“Your town has some challenges,” said Judi Barrett of Barrett Planning Group at the Jan. 3 presentation. “Reading through your town reports, you begin to get a picture of a community that’s really struggling.”
Spearheaded by the Tisbury planning board, which named a steering committee of community members, the master planning process got underway about six months ago when Ms. Barrett’s team began gathering information and visiting the Island. The target date for a finished plan is September of this year.
The consultants’ next virtual presentation, focusing on the town’s three business districts, is scheduled for two dates in mid-February.
Tisbury officials agreed that the master plan process will hold up a mirror that doesn’t always flatter the town.
Report focused on numerous municipal buildings, like the town hall annex, that need improvements.
Report focused on numerous municipal buildings, like the town hall annex, that need improvements.
“They’re going to say things that we’re going to need to hear,” town administrator Jay Grande said.
The state of Tisbury’s municipal buildings caused particular concern among the consultants, with their report stating that the town hall, town annex, senior center and Vineyard Haven Library are all inadequate.
“[We] were very surprised at the condition of your public facilities,” Ms. Barrett said. “People, almost to a person, said they were shocked. It’s just kind of a feeling of a town that is really weighted down by a lot of responsibility and not the resources to take care of itself, and you tend to see that... where you see public buildings that really need a lot of attention.”
But it wasn’t just structures that came under the critical eye of the Barrett Planning Group. Issues of governance and zoning bylaws were also raised. Ms. Barrett suggested that the town’s zoning bylaw needed a complete overhaul, describing the current bylaw as relying heavily on officials’ discretion.
“The lack of clarity in the document is remarkable. It’s one of the most special-permit-dependent zoning bylaws I’ve seen,” she told the steering committee.
“[This] can be an impediment to development unless there are a lot of incentives built in for an applicant to go through that discretionary process, and potentially an appeal process as well,” Ms. Barrett said.
The zoning bylaw also is unfriendly to multi-family and cluster developments, with dimensional requirements only work for single-family homes, she said.
“When we see things like that, we have to assume either the town is writing zoning and doesn’t really understand what it’s asking for, or there’s an underlying intent to discourage something,” Ms. Barrett said.
Tisbury benefits from a year-round economy, the report stated.
Tisbury benefits from a year-round economy, the report stated.
Also discouraging, she said, is the bylaw’s lack of a table where applicants can easily see the requirements for setbacks, frontage, height and other dimensions.
“To someone who’s coming into your community, or even to an existing property owner... just having that all laid out in a table makes it easier than wading through text,” she said.
Fixing the zoning bylaw is essential for Tisbury’s future, she told the committee.
“You’re going to have to make some big policy decisions during this [master plan] process, and what you don’t want to do is pile those policy decisions on a zoning bylaw as fundamentally flawed as this one is,” Ms. Barrett said.
On Feb. 13 and Feb. 16, the consultants’ next report will focus on the commercial districts in town, presenting a series of potential options for future development on the waterfront, Main street and State Road business districts, said Dan Doyle, a Martha’s Vineyard Commission planner on loan to the town as its master plan coordinator.
“We’ll be looking particularly at critical zones in the business areas that have opportunities, vulnerabilities and possibilities,” he said, adding that the consultants will be seeking feedback from participants.
“We’re trying to focus not only on the broader community, but looking for property owners and business owners to attend,” he said.
A community survey on the master plan has been mailed out with this month’s water bills from Tisbury, Mr. Doyle said, and is also posted online at the Barrett Planning Group’s website.
Mr. Doyle also echoed Mr. Grande’s sentiments about listening with an open mind to the consultant’s findings.
“There are some hard truths that we need to reckon with,” Mr. Doyle said.
More information is posted at tisburymasterplan.com.
Comments
To begin with, as Jay Grande
Frank Brunelle TisburyTo begin with, as Jay Grande pointed out the Tisbury committees are at the root of the problem. It is why we have issues. Going to the website noted in the article does not inspire confidence. Secondly, searching for the Tisbury component on the Barret Group website is confusing since there are so many listed projects and communities but the Tisbury site cannot be found, or if it can, I was not able to locate it. So there appears to be no way for the public to read their findings. I fought the Tisbury Waterfront Zoning Bylaw an was viciously attacked by both newspapers, but it has never worked and only now, decades later, has someone pointed out the obvious. Yes, there are challenges, an understatement to be sure. Barrett Planning Group may be able to offer suggestions but the real problems are with the town leadership itself.
Perhaps the single most obvious example of current town leadership is the move of town fundamental administration into the Catherine Cornell Theater, something some people consider, like myself, as sacred territory intended for the arts. That really is symbolic of how deeply routed the town problems are manifested. But what Tisbury consists of is so deeply ingrained that we actually have a tremendous problem with a defective drawbridge, a more than $50 million dollar project that virtually no one in Tisbury government wants to even recognize, let alone fix.
I find it extremely telling that after all of the effort I used to correct the Beach Road project, that I was successful and was done according to specifications that I recommended, and that every part of every Committee, and that every board in Tisbury fought against my ideas. If you want to see what Tisbury boards wanted, just look at what oak Bluffs got for a Shared Use Path. It would have been even worse here. And this is what I had to fight against for over 10 years.
To the Barrett Group, I wish them good luck.
Well reading this quote " a
Bob EdgartownWell reading this quote " a town that is really weighted down by a lot of responsibility and not the resources to take care of itself" made me laugh as their is plenty of resources for this town. It is how they waste the resources is the problem.
Over the years I have
Jason Peringer Vineyard HavenOver the years I have occasionally commented on stories outlining the shortfalls and missed opportunities of the town which I have lived and owned a business in for more than twenty years. I previously thought that the problem was in the leadership; abstaining from critical votes, promoting a skewed personal agenda, and generally administrating with a lack of vision. However, in the recent months I have come to the realization that the majority of residents in Tisbury are accurately reflected in their leadership.
After attending the override town meeting, which had to be held in another town due to the lack of an appropriate venue in Tisbury, it became clear to me that the town of Tisbury has a "heart strings over purse strings" problem. The resistance to allows liquor sales/service in town was merely a harbinger for what was yet to come. The nostalgia to live in a past that clearly no longer has a place in a town that desperately requires development to merely keep pace with the current conditions, let alone set a course where economic development where the town can prosper.
As someone who grew up in a town in the shadow of Foxwoods Casino, I have witnessed this lack of vision before. The town leadership, as well as the majority of its residents, eschewed the numerous opportunities that presented themselves early in the development that they could have capitalized on, but instead chose to believe that they could ignore the economic elephant in the room. Decades later the town, which was formerly a farming community, a basically a rest stop for the buses, limos, and cars that stream to the resort mecca. There are no streams of revenue tied to the casino, the farms have mostly shuttered, and the taxes burdening the residents have ballooned.
The town of Tisbury has numerous opportunities to develop economic streams of revenue with its available resources. The question is whether the residents and their leadership have the foresight to navigate and negotiate a path forward to sustainability and prosperity or whether they will choose to live in a past that will most certainly lead to increased financial hardships on the residents through ever higher taxes.
If I hadn’t read this I
John Aldeborgh KatamaIf I hadn’t read this I wouldn’t have known Tisbury was in such dire straits. Also sounds like the setup for a sizable tax increase.
Tisbury, a small picturesque rural town of roughly 4,000 with a median home price touching $1M on a small island with minimal crime, good roads and virtually no unemployment….how much government do you really need? Government always cost money, suffers from upward expense creep and places increasing restrictions on it citizens. Government for the sake of government isn’t progress or necessarily a good thing.
Contrary to Mr. Aldeborgh's
Sara Oak BluffsContrary to Mr. Aldeborgh's initial assessment, I would be particularly interested in seeing the Tisbury Town Hall either rehabilitated or replaced. I imagine Katharine Cornell whirling in her grave behind that edifice, in that it has been determined that need for Town office space has co-opted the Theatre that Ms. Cornell supported, as well as the theatre community of Martha's Vineyard, and its supporters.
Dast I mention also that the
Sara Oak BluffsDast I mention also that the handicapped access to the Town Hall is also woefully lacking? There is one usable elevator, and another that is used for storage, apparently. The one that is usable, near the front of the building, is too small for many wheelchairs and my heart broke watching strong members of the staff of Camp Jabberwocky carry the wheelchairs and the people in them up over the steps, in order that those people be able to enjoy an evening at the theatre; something that is denied to all of us now. I would think that ADA would step in here if this building is to be rehabbed to make this and other Tisbury government buildings accessible to handicapped people.
This is good news for Tisbury
Tom Engley West TisburyThis is good news for Tisbury if they can pull it off. I grew up in Tisbury and was always afraid to enter the town hall I know there are good people working there but most of them are spinning their wheels and it’s not their fault. Lack of real leadership and poor decision making has brought them to this point. Rockland Ma just completed an elementy school 9 months early and under budget that is good leadership. Tisbury has too many buildings and properties for this town manager. Tisbury is the Gateway to MV first impression is important.
To the point of first
Tom TisburyTo the point of first impression, if you belive that is important you should ask your town board and other committee members involved with community grant programs to invest those monies into the "Gateway" your hoping makes a good first impression.
I live in West Tisbury. But I
Tom Engley West TisburyI live in West Tisbury. But I have asked former selectman Larry Gomez to clean up the forgotten park at the draw bridge and with in 24 hours it was cleaned up I also ask Selectman Roy C to look into why the steamship property looked unkempt near the employee parking area that to was eventually cleaned up so Tom of Tisbury get onboard and help your town. I’ll continue to support my home grown town of Tisbury.
There are jobs and even if
Underemployed VHThere are jobs and even if there was ample housing, you still can’t afford to live on the pay. That goes for town jobs as well. Plenty of money in Tisbury all around but the wealthy never pay fair wages.
Tisbury the Ostrich was shown
KaC VHTisbury the Ostrich was shown proof it had a number of serious issues to work on. Tisbury the Ostrich drove its head into a hole in the sand and stamped its big feet. There, everything's all better, right Tisbury?
Building past the plans and
Brenda Leonard Oak BluffsBuilding past the plans and into a town or state roadway then having the taxpayers pay for the sewer. NO actual financial repercussions.
Joke city.
Sounds like Tisbury has the wrong people in charge.
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