Neighbors continue to raise concerns about the height and size of a proposed new hotel in the East Chop neighborhood of Oak Bluffs.

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission heard nearly two hours of testimony on the proposed Ocean View Hotel in Oak Bluffs Thursday night, before closing the public hearing that began in September.

The commission continues to accept written comments until 5 p.m. Nov. 6., with a date still to be set for deliberations on the controversial project.

Property owner Charles Hajjar, represented by attorney Cass Luskin, wants to replace the former Ocean View Restaurant — destroyed by fire in 2022 — with a three-story, 26-room seasonal hotel and outdoor amenities including a pool and fire pit.

Scaffolding and ropes show the height of the proposed hotel.

Ray Ewing

Scaffolding and ropes show the height of the proposed hotel.

Ray Ewing

“We’re here to try and rebuild a grand Victorian-style hotel … at the only available location,” Mr. Luskin said Thursday, noting that the property is zoned for business use.

“We’re willing to work with the Commission and abutters as to many different items, but … we’re here to try and find a way to build this thing,” he said.

A previous Ocean View Hotel, originally named Ocean View House, operated on the site from the 1890s to the 1960s, when it was destroyed by fire and replaced by the restaurant.

Mr. Hajjar and Mr. Luskin originally proposed rebuilding the restaurant with an added bakery and employee housing, but subsequently switched to the hotel plan for profitability purposes.

“The price is just crazy to build right now. A restaurant would probably cost $5 million on that site, and if you’re going to get $150,000 or $200,000 of rent, there’s absolutely no return,” Mr. Hajjar told commissioners Thursday.

Along with the 26 hotel rooms, accommodating up to 74 guests, the proposal includes three worker apartments in the basement.

When the hotel is open, the dwellings would be occupied by some of its 12 to 18 staffers, according to the plan, while in the off-season they would be used by tradespeople visiting the Island to work on the Ocean View and Mr. Hajjar’s other hotel properties in Edgartown: the Christopher, the Richard, the Edgartown Inn, the Sydney and the Coco.

Residents of Chapman avenue and the surrounding neighborhood have mobilized against the Ocean View project, placing “Save Oak Bluffs Neighborhoods” lawn signs and urging commissioners to deny the hotel, which abutters say will block out light, air and views they have enjoyed for decades.

The resident who will be affected the most is Lee Van Allen, whose longtime family home on Wayland avenue is directly behind the Ocean View site.

Neighbor Tony Dorsey testified Thursday that he visited Ms. Van Allen recently to see the hotel’s proposed dimensions from her deck.

“I walked out, and there were the flags, and I got sick to my stomach … when I saw what they were going to do in front of this woman’s house,” Mr. Dorsey said. “It’s horrible.”

At the commission’s request, the applicants have placed scaffolding and ropes on the lot temporarily, to indicate the approximate mass of the proposed new hotel.

The height and width of these so-called story poles, however, fall about five feet short of the actual building dimensions, according to Ms. Van Allen’s attorney David McCay, who testified that he measured them last week.

Mr. Hajjar and Mr. Luskin acknowledged that Mr. McCay was correct and the actual building height is planned at 34.5 feet and the width at 74 feet along Chapman avenue.

Hearing officer Douglas Sederholm asked the Ocean View developers to keep the story poles in place until this Thursday so all of his fellow commissioners can have the opportunity to see them, not only from the immediate Chapman avenue area but at some distances as well. 

“When you look at the stakes and story poles and lines, it’s useful to look not only right next to it [but] also way down on East Chop Drive. They’re very different perspectives,” Mr. Sederholm said.

Commissioners also heard the applicants’ plans for serving food and drink, including alcohol, all of which would be available only to guests, Mr Luskin said.

The food and beverage service would extend outdoors, he said, with about 20 seats in the pool area and another 36 inside the hotel.

After closing the Ocean View hearing, commissioners turned to their continued public hearing on another contested Oak Bluffs project, the Metcalf house on Harrison avenue.

Owners Sengal and Lynn Selassie are seeking to partially demolish, enlarge and reorient their vintage home on its lot, in order to maximize their water views.

The resulting structure would cut back the nearly all the water views of their Dudley street neighbors Michael and Lorraine Chapman, who testified that the Selassies’ offer to trim trees on the remaining sliver of open property would do little to preserve the Chapmans’ existing viewshed.

“They’re doing this … because they don’t like looking at the back of the house in front of them, which is only just a portion, because they actually do have a beautiful view, we’ve been in the house a number of times. But yeah, they’re very comfortable with plowing a giant house in front of our house, blocking it completely,” Ms. Chapman said.

The Selassies’ latest project design, submitted last week by architect Angie Francis, also drew criticism from architectural historian Eric Dray, who works with the Martha’s Vineyard Commission to evaluate applications involving structures more than a century old.

Mr. Dray was particularly opposed to the foundation design, which would carry the house’s existing cobblestone across the proposed new service wing.

“It is inappropriate to carry the fieldstone foundation across that elevation. That simply was not its original condition, and foundations play an important role in sort of telling the story of how a building evolved,” Mr. Dray said. 

“So to … sort of dress it up with a fieldstone foundation just creates a false sense of historical development, in my opinion,” he said.

Oak Bluffs historical commission chair Barbara Baskin also testified, saying her commission would not even consider the Selassies’ latest plans.

“The house is currently in excellent condition [with] unique historic features,” Ms. Baskin said. 

“[Historical commission] members felt unanimously that the Selassies could make whatever changes to the interior necessary for modern living, but that the house should be preserved completely in its present form, and that only routine maintenance should be considered for the future. That was our decision and as a result, we don’t really feel that looking at new plans is in order,” she said.

“We’ve kind of drawn a line in the sand,” Ms. Baskin said.

Mr. Sederholm continued the public hearing to Nov. 6.