Tisbury voters approved all 11 warrant articles at their special town meeting Tuesday night, including a controversial $297,000 spending article to renovate the Tashmoo water works house on West Spring street.

More than an hour of public testimony preceded the voice vote on the renovation article, with speakers falling into two main camps: those who saw the expenditure as necessary to maintain a century-old town asset, and others strongly opposed to the select board’s plan to use the house for municipal housing.

Several speakers expressed resentment that the refurbished house is slated for the use of town administrator Joseph LaCivita, whose $200,000 contract carries an additional housing stipend of $3,000 a month until renovations are completed.

“This guy makes $200,000, and we’re going to give him a house?” Don Brown said. “I just think he needs some skin in the game. Maybe he’ll make some better choices for the town if he’s feeling the pinch that we all feel.”

Lorraine Wells, chair of Tashmoo Spring building management committee at the microphone.

Jeanna Shepard

Lorraine Wells, chair of Tashmoo Spring building management committee at the microphone.

Jeanna Shepard

Finance and advisory committee chair Nancy Gilfoy, who served on the town administrator search committee last year, testified that the housing stipend was necessary to obtain a skilled executive to manage the town’s affairs and its $40 million budget.

“Housing was understood to be part of the contract negotiations, because even with a top salary it was unlikely that a new hire could own a comparable home on Martha’s Vineyard. Instead, they would be entering the rental market,” Ms. Gilfoy said, noting that all of the finalists for the position were from off-Island.

“We were asking a person to come here and make a multi-year commitment to Tisbury, [and] without the housing stability it’s really hard to make that kind of move,” she said.

Mr. LaCivita’s three-year contract began in March.

Select board members John Cahill and Roy Cutrer both noted that the Tashmoo structure was built as a home for the manager of the water works and that it was known as “the engineer’s house.”

Select board member John Cahill.

Jeanna Shepard

Select board member John Cahill.

Jeanna Shepard

Over the years, it also has served as office space for various town departments and as temporary housing for construction managers during the Tisbury School project. The building currently is vacant.

Members of the Tashmoo Spring building management committee argued that the select board did not have the right to promise Mr. LaCivita he could live in the house, but town counsel David Doneski confirmed that state law places the select board in control of town assets.

Public works director Kirk Metell took the microphone to inform voters that regardless of Tuesday’s outcome, he would be seeking money at a future town meeting to perform needed repairs at the Tashmoo house.

“We’re going to need a roof. We’re going to need siding, and right now we’re still heating with oil, so we’re probably going to need heat pumps.... We’re going to be putting money into this building one way or another,” Mr. Metell said.

Voter Kate Shands backed the article.

Special town meeting was held in the Tisbury School gym.

Jeanna Shepard

Special town meeting was held in the Tisbury School gym.

Jeanna Shepard

“The building needs to be repaired, and it should be renovated now as a town asset,” she said.

“Tisbury has an unfortunate history of putting off repairs and improvements to its buildings — for example, our library — only to incur much higher costs later,” Ms. Shands added.

Ben Robinson, a member of the Tisbury planning board who also serves as one of the town’s elected representatives on the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, supported the article but said he feared the $297,000 would not be enough to restore the building adequately.

“I don’t want to shortchange what has to happen here,” Mr. Robinson said. “There’s no money in this for exterior painting [or] new siding.... I think we’re probably going to have to appropriate more funds in the future for this.”

Tisbury voters also approved new and updated bylaws on parking for boats and trailers and licensing requirements for dog kennels. They also voted in favor of spending articles covering employee contracts, software licensing and the procurement of new speed-reading signs and a pumper truck for the fire department, as well as a $45,000 consulting contract to assess the town’s capacity to manage its debt.