A Martha’s Vineyard Commission subcommittee decided this week to require a new traffic study for a proposed fuel station off State Road in Vineyard Haven, but not before a bit of open disagreement on the merits.
In what is likely to become a common theme, the Oak Bluffs selectmen spent much of their Tuesday meeting discussing the town’s budget problems.
The ongoing discussion of the role of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission in reviewing commercial development continued on Thursday as Oak Bluffs officials took aim at the regional planning commission’s development of regional impact (DRI) checklist.
After a commission meeting last Monday where Edgartown selectman Michael Donaroma urged more leniency in the Upper Main street business district, Oak Bluffs selectmen and town planning board members echoed some of the same sentiments during a joint workshop on Tuesday.
West Tisbury town officials have mostly agreed that the rocks will have to go.
Members of the town historic district commission appeared before selectmen on Wednesday to denounce the large boulders in front of the recently renovated town hall which they feel are not in keeping with the town historic district.
“The rocks were an easy temporary thing, they weren’t on any official plans,” said historic district commission chairman Sean Conley. “It’s like making a cake and then putting ugly frosting on it.”
A fight over dirt bikes has pitted neighbor against neighbor in the rural backwoods of West Tisbury.
At a contentious public hearing before the West Tisbury zoning board of appeals on Wednesday, some 40 town residents and bikers attended either to defend the dirt biking at Nip ’n’ Tuck Farm off State Road as a harmless recreational activity or denounce it as an acoustic assault that is financially and psychologically injurious.
If a group of West Tisbury restaurateurs are successful the town may join Tisbury and Aquinnah in the ranks of the Island’s formerly dry towns.
It’s been a long time since West Tisbury residents have been able to imbibe at a local establishment. In the mid-19th century, proprietor Sanderson Manter Mayhew held a license for the sale of rum at what is now Alley’s General Store, but for a century and a half West Tisbury has been dry.