Land Bank Announces Two Purchases

By JULIA WELLS

Two purchases announced by the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank
this week will protect a piece of fallow farmland in the town of Tisbury
and a tree-lined ridge with an old brook running through it in the town
of Aquinnah.

In the first purchase, the land bank bought an agricultural
preservation restriction (APR) on just over 21 acres of Chicama
Vineyards, a well-known farm and winery owned by George and Catherine
Mathiesen. The vineyard spans the towns of Tisbury and West Tisbury; the
land bank will hold an APR from the Mathiesens on the portion of the
property that lies in Tisbury off Stoney Hill Road. Purchase price is
$529,750.

The farmland is dotted with old grapevine supports and young cedar
trees growing up among them. The purchase agreement includes a provision
that will allow the Mathiesens to sell the trees for the next 10 years.
After 10 years, the land bank will have the right to remove the cedars
and return the property to open land.

"This land bank always prioritizes farmland, whether active or
fallow, so this was a natural," said land bank executive director
James Lengyel this week.

The new acreage abuts the land bank's four-acre Little
Duarte's Pond Preserve, made possible through a 2001 sale from the
Mathiesens. The recent APR purchase includes a trail easement that will
connect the pond preserve with the Greenlands Preserve in West Tisbury.

"This is a very beautiful part of Martha's Vineyard
because even though you are so close to the Vineyard Haven town center,
you are separated from it. It has a central Massachusetts farmland feel
with a beautiful little pond in the center of it," Mr. Lengyel
said.

The trail easement will add an important link to the land bank trail
network.

"People will be able to walk through three towns in a matter
of minutes," Mr. Lengyel said.

Chicama Vineyards was begun by the Mathiesens in 1972, and more than
30 years later the family continues to grow grapes and make wine,
vinegar and other products at the vineyard. The Mathiesens have always
had a strong conservation ethic for their land. "It's like
the preservation of Sequoia National Park [in California] or Chaco
Canyon [in New Mexico]. Those are all connections we as humans think
it's important to pass along. On a smaller scale, we think
that's important on the Island," George Mathiesen said in a
story in Martha's Vineyard Magazine last summer.

In Aquinnah this week the land bank bought 12 acres from Carmela
Stephens and Stella Hopkins fronting Lobsterville Road near the
intersection of Lighthouse Road. Purchase price was $1.41 million.

The property abuts the Gay Head Moraine Preserve, a 61-acre property
that began with a purchase by the land bank in 1998. The 28-acre
original purchase included a hilltop with sweeping views of Menemsha
Bight. The land was owned by the Nityananda Institute Inc., which used
the property for yoga and meditation until the building on the property
burned down in 1996.

The acquisition includes a cooperative venture between the land bank
and the Island Affordable Housing Development Corporation, a nonprofit
corporation that is an arm of the Island Affordable Housing Fund. Before
the sale to the land bank, one acre of the property was sold to the
affordable housing corporation (a one-acre lot is allowed under a town
affordable housing ordinance). The housing corporation gave a
restriction to the land bank on half of the property, leaving half an
acre for use as a single family affordable housing lot. The town will
assign the lot to a qualified buyer who will be allowed to build a home
on top of an old house foundation.

In the end the shared purchase price included $1.352 million paid by
the land bank and $57,715 paid by the affordable housing corporation.

"This property was a priority because the land bank had
already bought the property to the south. When you stand on the knoll
you are looking right at Menemsha - you don't see anything
except Menemsha village and houses would have detracted from the
experience. Our goal from the start was to keep houses out of the ridge.
The property was subdivided, it could have been sold. It would have been
a great regret on the land bank's part to have not pursued
it," Mr. Lengyel said.

The Aquinnah property was purchased on an all-Island basis because
the Aquinnah land bank fund does not receive enough revenue to cover the
purchase. All town advisory boards were asked to contribute to the
purchase and all agreed, Mr. Lengyel said.

"We now have the potential for a trail from Lobsterville Road
into this property. This could serve as an anchor for a cross-Aquinnah
trail; I think the logic of it is going to appeal to people," he
concluded.