The $2.5 million expansion of the Martha’s Vineyard Refuse District’s central transfer station is on hold for now.

After Edgartown voters Tuesday night defeated an article seeking re-approval of a 20-year bond to pay for the expanded transfer station, town and district leaders agreed that the project cannot go forward.

The vote in Edgartown came as something of a surprise, since the same article had appeared nearly verbatim at the annual town meeting last year and was easily approved.

“There is nothing I can do at this point,” district manager Don Hatch told the Gazette Wednesday, one day after the vote.

In an email on the same day, town administrator Pam Dolby agreed. “As far as we are concerned the project is dead due to the vote last night,” she said.

The refuse district also includes West Tisbury, Chilmark and Aquinnah. The expansion project for the central transfer station won approval in all four towns beginning in 2014, but later it was discovered there was a technical problem — the votes came after a 45-day window as defined in the district bylaws. The district had two choices for correcting the problem: seek legislative action to affirm the votes or take a second vote on the borrowing. A re-vote was seen as a quicker solution.

“The legislative option did not come through in time, so we left it out on the town floor,” Mr. Hatch said.

West Tisbury, which also had its annual town meeting on Tuesday, approved the article by a voice vote.

Each member town was assessed its share of the project based on its use of the transfer station, with Edgartown covering 69.5 per cent of the cost. West Tisbury was assessed at 15.5 per cent, Chilmark at 12 per cent and Aquinnah at three per cent.

As of this week, the project was still under review by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, which held three public hearings this winter and was waiting for further information from the district. Concerns focused largely on noise and visibility, and the overall scope of the expansion, which would more than double the station’s operational footprint of about four acres.

Two years ago Mr. Hatch had anticipated broad support for the project. “I have a feeling that the towns are for this and they want to see this grow for the future,” he told the Gazette at the time. He also noted the variable costs of concrete, which made up about half the cost of the project, and hoped to complete construction by 2016.

The plan called for a separate drop-off area for residential trash, and a second garbage scale for vehicles and commercial waste. It also included a new access road around the perimeter of the site. A large berm, combined with a fence, was later added to the plan to mitigate the affect of noise on abutters to the south.

The Martha’s Vineyard Airport, which had influenced the original design of the transfer station in the 1990s, began weighing in on the proposal in March, although Mr. Hatch said the acting manager at the time didn’t seem to have any concerns. Concerns in the 1990s focused largely on the potential increase in bird traffic near the runways.

Long-term plans for the station have remained unclear, in part because the district did not anticipate an increase in traffic, or a future consolidation with Oak Bluffs and Tisbury, despite the size of the expansion. The current plans, developed by Environmental Partners of Quincy, incorporate recommendations from a consolidation study the firm conducted for the district in 2011, creating further confusion. Mr. Hatch said in February that the new station could allow the district to respond to increasing regulations related to waste separation, including compostable materials.

The district has submitted paperwork to the National Heritage and Endangered Species Program, since the entire project area contains habitat for state-listed rare species. Mr. Hatch said the state program was still waiting for a final plan.

The current plan has changed little since 2014, but Mr. Hatch said a final proposal would have depended on the $2.5 million bond. “That’s what we’ve been waiting for, to get the money approved, so we could finish the plans,” he said.

For now, the future of the project is uncertain. Mr. Hatch said he expects the district committee to regroup at its next meeting, which has not yet been scheduled.