A unanimous coordination by the Martha Vineyard Commission on Thursday clarified the way for the city of Oak Bluffs to continue a long-asked plan to strengthen the eroding bluff along the East Chop Drive.
The Commission approved an earlier version of the project in 2018 and later granted an extension by 2026. Changes to the plans required the city, which returned to the Commission.
A large part of the East Chop Drive has been closed to motor vehicles since 2018, as it is feared that erosion could make the road permanently impassable.
The first phase of the multi-year bluff reinforcement project is expected to begin in autumn, whereby the construction between the Labor Day and the Memorial Day takes over a total of 15 months.
A scholarship agency for emergency management agency in 2022 in the amount of 10 million US dollars and other money approved by OAK Bluffs voters will finance this phase that cover the southernmost 1,200 linear coastal foot until after the Harrison Avenue.
The work is expected to take about 15 months. – Ray Ewing
The initial financing also pays the infrastructure changes required for all 2,400 feet bluff reconstruction, including a temporary pier at the base of the bluff.
At a public hearing last month, the project manager Daniel Ciaramicoli from Contractor Tighe & Bond informed the commissioners that his company had discovered “considerable construction and security problems” with the plans for the stabilization of the bluff, which require redesign.
The temporary pier were introduced in the new plans, on which devices and materials arrive with load barges, which also remove rubble and reduce the effects of the project on truck and ferry traffic.
If the city is unable to complete the second phase of bluff work in the time phase one, the temporary pier is removed according to the MVC decision.
The Commission's approval is also based on a number of other conditions, including a ban against artificial lighting at the building location, apart from navigation safety lights on the pier.
The city also has to submit a landscape plan to restart the bluff after construction.
Also on Thursday, Martha's Vineyard Commission opened two public hearings, each of which continued to a future date.
The commissioners listened to statements to an application for demolition and replacement of a house in Vineyard Haven, which is obviously older than in 1930, his date in the records in the city's property. The approval of Martha's Vineyard Commission is required for every demolition of an island building that is 100 years or older.
According to the Tisbury Historical Commission, the remote cottage comes in the Massasoit Avenue from the 1920s and was moved to West Chop by her original house in Lambert's Cove.
However, the historical commission was no longer able to provide whether the house should be preserved or not, said Rich Salzberg, coordinator of the Vineyard Commission in Martha, the commissioners on Thursday.
Instead, the group wrote a letter that offered both reasons for and against a demolition permit.
The main argument of the historical commission for the preservation of the house was that it has a connection to the historic Red Lodge property, which is later known as Mohu in Lambert's Cove.
The fact that the house itself is not characteristic should not do its preservation to fail, the letter continued.
“We cannot preserve the historical material of the island if we only save the big strike and the celebrities,” wrote the historical commission.
As an argument for the demolition, the letter found that the house in West Chop arrived after the development of the neighborhood and that architecturally differs from others in the region.
Eric Dray, consultant for the preservation, who checked the building for the Vineyard Commission of Martha, was also very important in architecture.
“When this house actually began as a cape in the middle of the 18th to early 19th centuries, it was changed from this original form beyond recognition,” Dray wrote in a report to the MVC.
“In my opinion on the basis of investigations that have been carried out so far, this house has no historical importance that deserves public interest,” he later added in the report.
The hearing commissioner Brian Smith continued the public hearing for two weeks to visit the commissioners the property.
A hearing on the application of builders Millers Professionals on new warehouse buildings in Airport Business Park has also continued.
The owner Ubaldo Miller wants to build two 7.300 square meters of metal bearings and a 7,000 square meter office building with parking spaces on a property in the 3 South Line Road in Edgartown.
The warehouses with five vehicle bays each save devices and materials, but no swimming pool shells, said Salzberg when he outlined the application.
Mr. Miller told the commissioners that there would be no production or production in the warehouses that he would like to use for materials that are currently kept outside of another property in Business Park.
The commissioners said they want to visit the website before continuing the public hearing, which is to be resumed on March 6th.