MVC Reopens Review of Housing Plan

By MANDY LOCKE

Neighbors sharpened their questions last night as the Martha's
Vineyard Commission began its second look at an affordable housing
project slated for the center of a densely-settled Edgartown
neighborhood.

The Jenney Lane project, proposed by Island Affordable Housing Fund
and South Mountain Company, calls for a cluster of 10 single-family
homes just behind Pine street and Curtis Lane. The project aims to boost
Island families of modest income into the ever-rising housing market.

But last night, residents asked commissioners to momentarily set
aside the need for affordable housing and consider the diminished
quality of life that existing residents would endure if the project is
approved.

"I think we need to ask, ‘Are we making this project
work in the neighborhood?' Because every time you accept a
project, people get stepped on," said David Wiley, a resident on
Pine street.

This is the Jenney Lane project's second round before the land
use planning agency - called at the request of neighbors after
eleventh-hour changes were made to the development's road access.
Failed attempts to secure an entrance along Fisher Road, a private dirt
drive off Curtis Lane, forced the applicant to funnel all of the
development's traffic onto Pine street. The revised plan pushed
neighbors already complaining of traffic congestion to a breaking point.

"To dump all of these 10 homes on Pine street when there are
three alternatives … those [exits] would make good ones, and it
can't be ignored. It's an injustice to all of us who live
there. It will definitely affect our quality of life," said Jeff
Wooden, another Pine street resident.

Two other potential entrances along Curtis Lane have been avoided
because of encroachments on the privacy of abutters. One of these
accesses cuts through a 22-foot space between a garage and a guest
house.

"We'd be putting a road through these peoples'
front yards," said John Abrams, chairman of Island Affordable
Housing Fund and president of South Mountain Company. The current owners
of the land, Ralph and Olivia Jenney, refuse to violate what they
describe as longstanding agreements with these property owners not to
use this passage. The Jenneys' access onto Upper Main street,
which would run beside their current residence, is not on the table
before the commission - a sore point which was referred to
repeatedly by neighbors.

The Jenneys are selling 2.5 acres to the affordable housing group
for $350,000 - half its appraised value. In addition to the
discounted land sale, each of the homes will be subsidized by about
$100,000 to ensure that homes are within reach of those households
earning up to 140 per cent of the county's median income, $74,000
for a family of four. The applicant announced last night that one of the
buildable lots will be used by Habitat for Humanity, which will build a
home for a family of even lower income.

Acknowledging the soured tone of exchanges between many neighbors
and the applicant, Mr. Abrams said that the Jenneys are
"increasingly disillusioned by the way they've been treated
through this process."

Despite the tensions, Mr. Abrams underlined the ever-pressing need
to provide affordable housing on the Island and promised to bring back
the working class element to the Pine street and Curtis Lane
neighborhood, a population that's been slipping away with each
home sale.

"This is simply an attempt to being back the blue-collar
element to the neighborhood. I think our proposal will have far less
impact than those already happening naturally by rising real estate
values," Mr. Abrams said.

But the good intentions of the project could not allay fears of
safety hazards and traffic headaches that neighbors along Pine street
said they would experience. An independent traffic engineer hired by
several of the abutters reported that the Pine street and Main street
intersection is already failed and that additional traffic would create
even longer delaysfor drivers trying to pull onto Main street. Even a
letter from Edgartown police chief Paul Condlin stated the changed
access, combined with the "narrowness of the roadway, the sharp
bend in the road and the business on the corner of Upper Main street and
Pine," concerned him.

One resident presented an alternative rendering to eliminate another
element of the Jenney Lane plan that bothers many neighbors: no
individual driveways. The cluster development design calls for parking
lots along the perimeter, with a drivable lane around the center for
loading. Jsemal Browne, a resident of the Dukes County Regional Housing
Authority's low-income apartments on Fisher Road, said he'd
endorse the project if the commission voted his version.

In the end, residents acknowledged that some version of the Jenney
Lane project will join their neighborhood, but they pressed the
commission to raise the development's standards.

"Everyone understands this development in some form will
happen soon. In its current form, however, it's less than
desirable. As a reality check, would you approve this project if it were
for-profit? You now have the opportunity to raise the standards for all
affordable housing projects that come before you," said Steve
Warriner, a resident of Pine street.

The public hearing was closed last night; the written record will
remain open until next Thursday.