In a town well-known for lengthy and often emotional town meetings, the special town meeting in Oak Bluffs on Tuesday was an anomaly, as voters quickly and quietly approved a wide range of articles including two separate requests for engineering studies of the town waterfront.

A total of 112 voters — a large turnout for a special town meeting in mid-December — packed into the cafeteria of the Oak Bluffs school and approved 17 articles in less than an hour. Almost every article was passed unanimously and without debate. “I can’t remember the last time that three articles passed unanimously,” moderator David Richardson said early on.

The easy-going meeting lacked hot button issues. Unlike recent town meetings where voters decided controversial measures to expand the baseball park at Veira Park or build a new package sewage treatment plant near the regional high school, this town meeting consisted mostly of housekeeping items.

The two articles requesting $112,200 for separate engineering studies of the waterfront area may have a huge impact on the town in the long run, because they are viewed as the first step in a larger plan to radically overhaul the town waterfront from the Steamship Authority terminal to Farm Pond.

Conservation commission chairman Joan Hughes presented the first article from the conservation commission, asking for $65,000 for a survey to examine erosion and structural decay at the town beach. Among other things, the commission wants to learn more about the jetty at Inkwell Beach and whether it is slowly starving the beach of sand.

Mrs. Hughes said a study of the beach became a priority this summer “when people went down to the water and realized there was no sand at the town beach.”

She also drew a distinction between the conservation commission’s article and the other from the community development committee asking for $46,000 to draft engineering plans for land side improvements along the beach. She said the conservation commission’s article would allow the town to apply for state and federal funds to repair the beach and prevent erosion, while the second article would seek to improve the aesthetics and the functionality of the sidewalks and railings along the beach.

“Remember, you can’t put on the frosting until the foundation of the cake has been built,” she said.

But voters were in favor of both plans to study and survey the town beach, and unanimously approved the two articles with no discussion.

Voters also approved an article requesting almost $7,000 for salary increases for two nonunion employees. The article grew out of a recent compensation and classification study ordered by the town which called for a new set of pay scales. Another article was approved asking voters to accept the findings of that study for the purpose of budgeting next year.

Other articles approved at town meeting included:

• A request to transfer $35,000 from the ambulance reserve fund to purchase a new four-wheel-drive vehicle for the police department. One of the police department’s older four-wheel-drive vehicles will now be given to the fire department for routine inspections and alarm calls.

• A request to transfer $40,000 from free cash to replace a failing boiler in the police station with a new heating and air-conditioning system.

• A request to transfer $176,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds to the town affordable housing committee to convert the old library on Pennacook avenue into a building that would house a pharmacy and three affordable rental units.

• A request by the town personnel board to expand membership from three to five.

• A request to transfer $44,000 from free cash for improvements to the sailing camp main building.