The Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC) was selected for a planning and technical assistance grant award by the MA Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. The proposal is to develop a user-friendly, web-based, site suitability tool to identify optimal sites for affordable housing development.

This tool will be made available to Planning Board and Affordable Housing Committee members across the towns of Oak Bluffs, Tisbury, West Tisbury, and Edgartown.  MVC is presently working on this project with Bluegear Labs, a software developer based in Mashpee, MA.   

For more info contact Dan Doyle, MVC’s Special Projects Planner.

The MVC is soliciting suggestions from town boards on what topics they would like to learn more about.

Each year the MVC partners with the Citizen Planner Training Collaborative (CPTC) to offer a couple of CPTC training sessions on the Vineyard. While these are principally targeted to members of town planning and zoning boards, workshops have often been of interest to other town boards, MVC commissioners, and individual citizens.

These workshops are usually selected from a menu of CPTC offerings, but CPTC will also try to develop a customized training session if requested. {Fall 2019 menu of CPTC courses}   Contact Bill Veno, MVC's Senior Planner.

Image Source:  CPTC 2018 PowerPoint

Bell Traffic, a construction crew based in Weymouth, MA, began installation work in early October and will complete the construction of six permanent traffic counters across the towns of West Tisbury, Oak Bluffs, and Edgartown by the end of the month. The data will be automatically retrieved wirelessly, and then analyzed by MVC staff, who will compile charts and visuals showing annual trends, and shifts in the shoulder season intensity. These graphics, along with the data itself, will be made available to the public. A map of the locations can be found here.

Through a MA Community Compact grant, MVC has secured engineering services from Howard Stein Hudson (HSH) for a 10 month pilot project, where Towns submit transportation-related infrastructure projects in need of design to the MVC.  Staff then prioritize projects and issue a formal request to HSH.  To date, submitted projects include design requests for:

Tisbury: traffic calming & improved pedestrian accommodations for Cromwell Lane.

Edgartown: redesign of a stretch of Edgartown-Vineyard Haven road for improved stormwater drainage, bus stop pulloffs, and widened buffer between the road & shared use path.

West Tisbury: a bicycle/pedestrian span parallel to the North Tisbury culvert near Mill Brook on State Road.

For more details, contact Dan Doyle, Special Projects Planner.

Image Source:  Google 2018 (acquired 2009)