It was standing room only at the Oak Bluffs master plan public meeting Wednesday night as town residents voiced their ideas for the future of the town.
Before a presentation on the master plan began, listening stations for each section of the master plan — protecting important resources, managing growth and change, addressing emerging issues, meeting community needs, and implementing the master plan — were set up in corners of the Oak Bluffs Public Library meeting room. Members of the public went around the room to each section and spoke with a member of the master plan subcommittee to voice their ideas.
But what is a master plan? “It’s an advisory document to help us guide the community in the future,” Ewell Hopkins, chairman of the planning board and master plan subcommittee, said. “Understanding where we are, evaluating where we’re going, the vision of where we want to be, and identifying how to get there.”
The town’s last master plan was done in 1998. Voters allocated $100,000 at the 2018 annual town meeting for the plan. The plan, which is currently at 111 pages and is in the community input phase, is reaching its culminating stages before a final draft is submitted to the planning board for adoption.
While the master plan is designed to share thoughts and ideas, get them down on paper, and use them as a road map for the future of the town, it is by no means a reference document. It is designed to be “used, re-evaluated, and amended as necessary,” the plan states.
Glenn Chalder, a planning consultant, has been working to develop the master plan, and said the world and Oak Bluffs have changed in the past 20 years: “My work basically is to help communities figure out what they want to be when they grow up. Oak Bluffs has been around long enough that you are grown up already, but the question really for us as a community is how we can make our community a better place in the future.”
The master plan covers a broad swath of topics, including everything from climate change to making the town “the premier place on Martha’s Vineyard for cyclists.”
Much of the evening’s discussion centered around housing issues, regional issues, beach maintenance, and wastewater management.
A host of people from the public shared their ideas for the town’s future.
Many residents felt beach erosion and maintaining good water quality should be dealt with now. Oak Bluffs parks and recreation chair Amy Billings said these natural resources should be a priority. “One of my points … is making sure that our water quality and our beaches and everything are taken care of first, before we worry about who they’re entertaining and what’s going on on them,” Billings said.
Oak Bluffs resident Sandra Lippens said she was impressed with the master plan, and called attention to housing. Lippens told the crowded room that she owned four acres before subdividing it into two lots and making one lot for employee housing. She said she had enough to give back to her town, and others could do the same.
“I do not need more than I need,” Lippens said. “You have to let up on the individual profits. How much are you going to take with you? How much are you going to leave to your kids? And what’s it all about? Give to the community, that’s what I say.”
The master plan also suggests extending the busy season into the shoulder season as a way to maintain the Island’s summer economy, but spread out tourists and lower traffic congestion.
Sam Low, however, disagreed. “The more you build, the more you put up attractions, the more people you’re going to get, and so I would like to see more emphasis on limits to growth,” Low said. “In the summers it just gets more and more and more. I think that one theme ought to be: Can we and should we limit the growth?”
Jim’s Package store owner Mark Wallace even floated the idea of a college campus in town where people could take classes in the winter and work in the summer. “This is a safe place for a college campus,” Wallace said.
While there was plenty of constructive criticism and ideas for the town’s future, the common theme with all the people who spoke was a passion for their town, its history, and its future.
Carrie Scott commented on the “magic” of Oak Bluffs. “I’m proud of the way we look,” she said. “It’s just a wonderful, wonderful, beautiful, and magical place.”
Copies of the master plan are made available for review at the Oak Bluffs Public Library, the planning board office in town hall, and online on the town’s website.
Carrie…Agree, it is a wonderful and beautiful place, EXCEPT for that damn eyesore called the Island Theater…it’s one of the first things visitors see when coming to OB….I just don’t understand why the selectmen/women can’t do something about it…if someone gets hurt from something falling off that building, the town has no defense…they known about the issue for decades…it will get real expensive!
Mr. Wallace made an excellent suggestion of a college. I always said that a nursing school would be appropriate, as it would also help out the island population with medical care. Any college would be able to rent homes instead of building a massive dorm, and that would give homeowners some cash flow (if they otherwise rented seasonally) and it would be an economic boom for all the restaurants and businesses that would otherwise close in the winter. More faces would make it a better place to live for all.
It aint beautiful and it aint magical. Drugs, alcohol, mental illness, burglary, contractor unaccountability, foreclosures, abandoned boats and furniture and cars, nip bottles everywhere. Social services overloaded for people who cant afford to live here but do because of the assistance. Bad debts not paid to store owners, to banks. Morose youth pierced and tattooed roaming around listlessly, moochers and con men–the list goes on. It is a beautiful island physically but it has a dirty little secret in its underbelly that no one knows about until they live here.
Andrew– if there is an “underbelly” on this island it is people who can only see things in a negative light.
No one is perfect, No community is perfect and your comment is just a reflection of your hate.
Shame on the times for posting it.
If my post is a reflection of ”hate” it just shows how easily liberals throw around that word. My post is an accurate reflection of conditions here and any reasonable person will lament how things have evolved in 20 years. It is my love for the island that points out its pathology.
Andrew, you left out the grumpy, old conservatives who take away from the beauty and magic of the Vineyard.
Andrew, you label mental illness a “dirty little secret.” You equate mental illness with burglary. Dementia, post-stress disorder, schizophrenia, and depression are not crimes. They are diseases. One of my daughters is Marine. I pray that if and when she comes home, she will not be suffering from a criminal offense. How dare you?
Bulkington you need to understand sentence structure and context. I am not damning mental illness and you know it. I am simply saying that MV has a lot of it and it manifests other pathology. I am also not talking about crimes only. I am compounding problems that make MV less than desirable and I believe our per capita metrics are higher than other places. As for ”secret” one week visitors dont see much of this. You have to live here for awhile. I stand ready to be disproved.
andrew Im with you, many just cant handle the truth as you can see because they are guilty of causing and enabling the problems that we have!