Katama Meadows, a mixed-income housing and subdivision proposal in Edgartown whose developers have a contentious past, opened what’s expected to be a lengthy public hearing before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission on Thursday night.

“This public hearing will go on for as many sessions as it takes, so that every member of the public will have the opportunity [to testify],” hearing officer Douglas Sederholm said.

Located on Division street, the 54-acre Katama Meadows property also fronts West Tisbury Road, Meeting House Way, Pease’s Point Way and Meshacket Road.

Developers Douglas Anderson and Richard Matthews are proposing a new plan for the land after the commission denied their Meeting House Way subdivision in 2020, which led the pair to sue the MVC in Dukes County Superior Court.

The new proposal includes 36 low-income rental apartments, 12 deed-restricted ownership units in six duplexes and 26 market-rate building lots for single family homes, which would be limited to no more than five bedrooms. 

The 36 apartments would be restricted to residents earning from 30 per cent to 80 per cent of the area median income, averaging about 60 per cent of median income across the complex.

The proposal is partially born out of talks between the MVC and the developers. The previous project did not include the affordable apartments and commissioners felt the Meeting House Way subdivision was out of character with the Island. 

After a judge upheld the commission’s denial of the Meeting House Way project in 2023, the developers appealed the verdict and also filed a petition for direct appellate review by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Mr. Sederholm said. 

Both appeals are on hold until the commission completes its review of Katama Meadows as a development of regional interest (DRI), he said.

“We’re going to start this whole thing over again. It’s a brand new DRI. I want everyone to understand that,” Mr. Sederholm said.

The apartment units would become part of Edgartown’s affordable housing inventory and would be managed by the Dukes County Housing Authority, according to the proposal.

Craig Nicholson of Affirmative Investments, which has worked with other affordable housing projects on the Island, said the units would be financed with the help of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, a nearly 40-year-old federal program enabling states and municipalities to issue tax credits for the purchase, repair and construction of low-income housing.

“It is a tax credit, rather than the federal government actually sending cash out,” Mr. Nicholson said. “So it’s been a widely popular bipartisan program since it was enacted in 1986 [and] I don’t see that being a change from this administration.”

The 12 duplex apartments would be deed-restricted to buyers living on Martha’s Vineyard year-round and the housing lots would be sold on the open market, according to the application.

Construction of the affordable apartments would commence after the developers build the duplexes and sell most of the housing lots, a plan that left some commissioners skeptical that the low-income units might not be built at all.

“The commission is very concerned about having what it believes is an ironclad guarantee that the LIHTC [units] will be built. And there are some concerns about whether your offer is ironclad,” Mr. Sederholm said.

“Because if the LIHTC isn’t built, why would we approve this? That’s the [only] benefit,” he said.

About 25 acres of the lot, largely along the Meeting House Way and Pease’s Point Way side of the property, would be conserved in open space, according to the application.

At Thursday’s meeting, wildlife biologist Luanne Johnson asked that more consideration be given to wild animals, particularly river otters, that travel across that part of the Island.

“There’s habitat that wildlife can use that connects them all the way down to Turkeyland Cove,” Ms. Johnson said, calling attention to a particularly narrow strip of open space on the Katama Meadows plan.

“It’s very restrictive … so I’d like to see that wider in some way,” said Ms. Johnson, who also expressed a concern that Katama Meadows homeowners might encroach on the land being reserved for natural habitat.

“What’s going to prevent that? You tend to get people dumping their brush, their lawn clippings, invasive plants [and] pet refuse,” she said.

At the outset of the Katama Meadows hearing, Mr. Sederholm announced that the applicants had asked the MVC to make Jeff Agnoli recuse himself from the matter. Mr. Agnoli had previously written letters against the Meeting House Way project. 

No legal basis exists for this request, though, said Mr. Sederholm.

“The commission, lacking the legal authority to do so, cannot and will not order commissioner Agnoli to recuse himself from participating in the MVC’s review of this DRI,” he said.

Mr. Agnoli said he has consulted with the state ethics commission and filed the appropriate disclosure form.

“I indicated that I had, as a private citizen between six and nine years ago, written letters of opposition against the original proposal, the Meeting House Way development that was denied by the commission. I was not on the commission at that time,” he said.

Mr. Agnoli said he also disclosed that he is a board member of the Vineyard Conservation Society, which may wish to voice opposition to Katama Meadows as an organization but not as a board.

“There’s been no vote by the [conservation society] board,” he said, adding that the developers’ current proposal is new and different.

“I intend to look at it with new eyes and to be fair and impartial in any decision that I render. So to that point, I will not be recusing myself,” Mr. Agnoli said.

The public hearing on Katama Meadows will continue at the commission’s April 17 meeting.