After more than three hours of public testimony Sept. 11, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission closed its long-delayed public hearing on Edgartown Gardens, a proposed 60-unit, 96-bedroom condominium complex between Upper Main street and Chase Road in Edgartown.

The commission will continue to accept written comments on the application until 5 p.m. Sept. 25.

Public comment has been running strongly against the project, which proposes 10 three-story buildings with six condos in each, totaling 24 one-bedroom and 36 two-bedroom units, all deed-restricted to owners aged 55 and older. 

The proposal’s staunchest foes have been Edgartown residents, the town Council on Aging and the Vineyard Conservation Society. 

“This project is much too oversized for this location and is completely inappropriate and a disservice to current businesses in the town as well as residents,” Deborah Mello Orazem of Edgartown wrote the commission, in one of more than 30 similar letters, emails and public comments the commission has received since the hearing opened earlier this year.

“It’s just trying to cram too much density into too small of a space,” Edgartown resident James Joyce said during last week’s public testimony.

Along with the 36-foot-tall proposed apartment buildings, the design for Edgartown Gardens also shows a swimming pool and adjacent community club, with an elevator.

The three-story apartment houses will have staircases, but no elevators, developer William Cumming and his attorney Jason Talerman told commissioners, saying that’s a non-negotiable condition of the plan because elevators would be prohibitively space-consuming and expensive.

Their position has drawn fire from Edgartown senior advocates as well as the Martha’s Vineyard Commission housing planner, Laura Silber, who said last week that the lack of accessibility to upper floors would be a significant drawback for year-round Island seniors looking to grow older in their condos.

“If it’s not an age-restricted project, that’s not a concern, but it is an age-restricted project,” Ms. Silber said.

Twelve of the condominiums would be additionally deed-restricted to owners earning no more than 40 to 50 per cent of the area median income, according to the latest plan. The other 48 units would be sold at market rate.

Members of the public and commissioners have raised concerns that the market-rate condominiums would be ripe for abuse by off-Island owners and investors, particularly because short-term rentals in those units are allowed in the Edgartown Gardens proposal.

“If a 55-year-old buys it and then they can rent it to a 25-year-old as a short-term rental, that’s not helping our community,” commissioner Greg Martino said, at last week’s final session of the public hearing.

Mr. Talerman and Mr. Cumming told the commission they won’t restrict sales based on buyers’ residency because it would depress unit prices, but that they do intend to market the condos to Islanders first. 

“If we could fill them all up with local folks, we’d be thrilled,” Mr. Talerman said.

Increased traffic along the already-troubled Upper Main street corridor, particularly at the intersection connecting Pinehurst Road to the Stop & Shop supermarket, is another top concern among the project’s opponents.

While acknowledging that the condominiums would add some daily motor vehicle trips to the area, Mr. Talerman and Mr. Cumming said most of the increase would be offset by the loss of commercial traffic from Donaroma’s landscaping business, which is relocating to Oak Bluffs while its retail operation remains on Upper Main.

To mitigate what they said would be a net 1.4 per cent increase in  vehicle trips, Mr. Cumming and Mr. Talerman are offering to build sidewalks along the access road that now leads between the Indigo restaurant property on one side and Bad Martha’s Brewery and Donaroma’s retail area on the other.

Speaker Susan Brady said the project’s 88 parking spaces are far too few for the amount of traffic the complex would generate and attract.

“There’s going to be condo employees, contractors, realtors, probably a sales office, management office, lifeguards, gym trainers, maintenance people, landscapers, security, all those people are going to need a place to park. They’re also going to add to the traffic,” Ms. Brady said.

She also assailed the project’s size and massing, saying the condo buildings would be twice the height of the Stop & Shop.

Jeremy Houser, director of science and policy for the Vineyard Conservation Society, delivered a statement last week reiterating the environmental group’s stout opposition.

“There’s no question here that the probable detriments of this proposal exceed its benefits,” Mr. Houser said, using the commission’s statutory terms for the pros and cons of a development of regional impact.

“The project [would increase] traffic at the Triangle and nitrogen in the Edgartown Great Pond, exacerbating two of the town’s most serious ongoing problems,” he told the commission. 

“It would very likely not be effective at accomplishing a stated goal of providing affordable housing that’s suitable to year-round residents, age 55 and over,” Mr. Houser said, adding that if short-term rentals are allowed, the project would do little or nothing to improve the Island’s housing crisis.

“We believe it could possibly make it worse, because of the increased demand for services from new residents and new visitors,” he said.

Mr. Cumming and Mr. Talerman, whose other proposal under Martha’s Vineyard Commission review is the 100-unit Green Villa complex in Oak Bluffs, have publicly chafed at the commission’s oversight.

Earlier this month, the two filed a lawsuit against the commission, calling on the state Land Court to rule that the MVC has no jurisdiction over so-called 40B developments, which are named for the state statute that eases some local zoning restrictions when projects include income-restricted housing. 

Both Edgartown Gardens and Green Villa are 40B developments that would require special permits from the town zoning boards of appeals because they exceed local bylaws for roof height and other conditions.

Mr. Talerman and Mr. Cumming also filed a legal complaint in July against the Edgartown zoning board of appeals, saying the board failed to hold a public hearing on Edgartown Gardens within a state-mandated 30-day window that began when the application was submitted last September.

Mr. Talerman’s four-page complaint to the state housing appeals committee argues that because of that omission, the zoning board should grant the special permit automatically.

The commission opened its public review of Edgartown Gardens on March 6, but the continued hearing was postponed twice at the applicants’ request before Mr. Cumming and Mr. Talerman appeared again before the commission on July 10. They then asked for another postponement to this month.

The commission has not yet formally scheduled its final deliberations on the project.

Editor's note: a previous version of this article had the incorrect comment period closing date. It is Sept. 25.