Hearing Closes on Cozy Hearth with Plea to MVC to Untangle

By IAN FEIN

After listening to another round of stiff critiques from the
Martha's Vineyard Commission last week, the applicants for an
unusual affordable housing subdivision proposed for Watcha Path in
Edgartown relented and, in effect agreed to go along with whatever was
asked of them, as long as their plan is approved.

The commission's land use planning subcommittee will now meet
Nov. 7 to develop a recommendation whether to approve or deny the Cozy
Hearth project. If the commission approves the subdivision, which is
under review as a development of regional impact (DRI), it is expected
to attach a long list of conditions.

At the close of the fourth and final public hearing on the project
last Thursday, many commission members shared their concerns about the
development and suggested they were unlikely to approve it as proposed.
The central sticking point was the issue of permanent affordability for
the project.

"I'm very concerned that you're asking us to put a
very dense development in a traditionally rural area - and all
you're guaranteeing is that three lots will be affordable in
perpetuity. You're not guaranteeing anything more," said
commission member Douglas Sederholm of Chilmark. "If I want to
impose a dense development on this neighborhood, it needs to have the
benefit of permanent affordability, and I don't see that right
now."

The project aims to create 11 one-acre lots in a three-acre minimum
zone using Chapter 40B, a state law that allows affordable housing
developments to skirt most local zoning regulations. The proposal is
unusual in that the applicants - together called the Cozy Hearth
Community Corporation - intend to occupy most of the subdivision.

As required by Chapter 40B, three of the 11 lots will be set aside
in perpetuity for qualifying Edgartown families earning less than 80 per
cent of median income. Cozy Hearth members proposed 30-year resale
restrictions on five of the remaining eight lots, but a number of
commissioners said they would accept permanent restrictions and nothing
less.

"When we weigh the benefits and detriments of a project -
you've got the detriments over here, and they don't go away
in 30 years," said commission chairman Linda Sibley of West
Tisbury. "So the benefits have to be as permanent as the
detriments. And as has been said here before, 30 years is the blink of
an eye in planning terms."

After commission members aired their concerns around the table, Cozy
Hearth members took a 10-minute break to assemble final offers and
changes to their application.

In the end the applicants did not offer to change the proposed
resale restrictions, but said they would accept it if the commission
required the maximum restrictions allowable by law. The
commission's enabling legislation grants it the authority to
impose permanent restrictions.

"I hope you understand how important that is to us,"
attorney Marcia Cini, who is representing the Cozy Hearth corporation,
said to commission members more than once when suggesting the
restriction change. Mrs. Cini is a former member of the commission.

In her final comments, she also handed over to the commission a set
of difficult unsolved problems over wastewater, traffic and landscaping.
She said the corporation would accept whatever solutions the commission
decides to impose.

While the applicants made no final formal offers on deed
restrictions, wastewater, traffic and landscaping, they did offer to
impose a height restriction of 26 feet to address commission concerns
about architecture styles and visibility to neighbors.

Cozy Hearth president William (Bill) Bennett of Chilmark suggested
earlier in the meeting that the architectural concerns were unnecessary.

"Nobody's going to be able to afford to build a big,
ugly house," Mr. Bennett said. "These are going to be small
houses, and every month they're getting smaller. The longer this
goes the more costly it gets. The money comes from somewhere, and
we're not rich people".

The hearing capped a five-month process in what has proven to be one
of the more difficult and controversial projects before the commission
in the last two years.

Commission members at the outset on Thursday acknowledged the length
of the review process and gave special recognition to some Cozy Hearth
members and also neighbors opposed to the project who have attended all
of the public hearings since May.

At the early hearings, supporters of the subdivision called it a
model grassroots effort that would allow working class residents to stay
on the Island. Opponents warned that it could set a dangerous precedent
for development density in an environmentally-sensitive area.

But with more scrutiny came more concerns, and after a third public
hearing in September, the commission sent Cozy Hearth members away with
a growing list of unanswered questions.

Mrs. Cini began Thursday by apologizing to commissioners for
underestimating what they expected of the applicants.

"This project didn't feel complicated when it
started," she said. "But over time I think we started
chasing around our tails."

Cozy Hearth members made a series of last-minute changes to their
application in the hours leading up to the hearing last week, trying to
resolve the commission's longstanding wastewater concerns for the
development in the fragile Oyster Pond watershed.

Mr. Bennett explained the latest proposal to use a combination of
composting toilets and denitrification septic systems among the 11 lots.
Some commissioners later pressed Mr. Bennett connect all of the homes to
an on-site package treatment plant. The wastewater issue, for the second
consecutive hearing, led to sharp exchanges between Mr. Bennett and some
commissioners.

"The money's the same [for the treatment plant], but
then we have this giant beast that needs to be maintained," Mr.
Bennett said.

"There is cost involved, and whatever you put in there to
accommodate a neighborhood of this size in that area will require some
maintenance," said commissioner Paul Strauss of Oak Bluffs.
"I think you need to step up and face that."

Last week Mr. Bennett also presented the commission with a new plan
to reconfigure the intersection of Watcha Path, Oyster Watcha Road and
Edgartown-West Tisbury Road, to address recurring concern over traffic
safety. Commissioners for the most part appeared to embrace the plan,
which some neighbors also supported.

Some commissioners on Thursday noted inconsistencies in Mr.
Bennett's written answers to the questions from the previous
meeting.

One involved the lingering question of whether Mr. Bennett, who
lives in Chilmark, intends to occupy the unrestricted Cozy Hearth lot he
is slated to receive. Mr. Bennett has at different times offered
conflicting answers.

The Cozy Hearth corporation is composed of Mr. Bennett's
friends and family members.

In a written response to a question about the three unrestricted
lots in the development, Mr. Bennett said the lots will go to people who
are going to live on site. But asked directly by commissioner Katherine
Newman of Aquinnah last week, Mr. Bennett said he did not plan to live
on the Edgartown lot. He said it is for his 10-year-old daughter, if she
eventually chooses to live there, and that he might not build a house on
the lot for another 20 years.

In response to other questions about aesthetics and outbuildings,
Mr. Bennett repeatedly answered by simply stating that the corporation
will abide by all applicable Edgartown zoning bylaws.

"These are the laws everyone else has to conform with,"
Mr. Bennett said at the meeting last week. "Why come up with new
rules for us?"

Some neighbors noted that the entire development, as a Chapter 40B
subdivision, is subverting the local zoning laws.

At least one commissioner suggested that the zoning issue alone was
enough to keep him from approving the project.

"The impact to the community of people who have chosen to live
in what planners have imagined as three-acre agricultural zoning -
where they have enough space around to have animals and open space
- is going to go away whether all of the lots are affordable or
not," said commissioner James Athearn of Edgartown. "So that
contradiction still sits with me."