Plans for a three-story, 26-room hotel on the old Ocean View restaurant site in Oak Bluffs have spurred a unified resistance campaign among East Chop residents, who turned out in force last week to testify against the proposal before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

One group of 24 neighbors on and around Chapman avenue, where the vacant Ocean View property sits at the end of a row of cottages overlooking Washington Park and Oak Bluffs harbor, delegated their arguments to eight people in order to make the most effective use of the five-minute speaker limit during the public hearing Sept. 18.

“This is a textbook case for why the MVC was created,” said Rob Leatherbee, speaking first.

“We have a sensitive neighborhood area … under assault,” he said.

Chapman avenue is part of the Copeland Plan district, which the Martha’s Vineyard Commission defines as a district of critical planning concern (DCPC) that requires extra oversight to protect its historic homes, parks and coastline.

While their testimony was uniformly opposed to the hotel, some speakers said they’d welcome a return of the year-round restaurant and bar, which burned down in March 2022.

John Kotspopoulos said he’d collected 65 petition signatures while walking the neighborhood and speaking to his fellow residents.

“Residents preferred a smaller building, ideally matching the size of the previous restaurant. They wanted their neighborhood restaurant back,” he said.

For a short time two years ago, it looked as if the popular eating and drinking place would return.

Property owner Charles Hajjar submitted blueprints to the commission in late 2023 showing a rebuilt restaurant with employee housing upstairs and a bakery in the basement.

He also brought that proposal to the Copeland Plan district committee in Oak Bluffs, which is charged by the town with reviewing proposed developments in the districts.

By the time the MVC opened its public hearing on the project in April of this year, however, the Ocean View Restaurant had changed its plans to be for the 18,543-square-foot Ocean View Hotel, with an outdoor pool and fire pit but no public restaurant or bar.

The conceptual drawings for both are virtually identical, with the addition of a wheelchair ramp and upper-story porches for the hotel.

Mr. Hajjar’s pivot came as an unwelcome surprise to restaurant operator Michael Santoro, who had been planning to reopen the Ocean View, as well as to neighbors and Copeland Plan district committee members who had been expecting the bar and eatery to return.

Lawn signs reading “Save Oak Bluffs Neighborhoods” quickly sprouted on lawns along Chapman avenue and nearby streets, amid charges that Mr. Hajjar is shutting neighbors out of the development process.

“He radically altered the proposal from the original combination of restaurant and apartments that was the subject of the Copeland District meeting [and] the abutters only found out about the current hotel proposal by monitoring submissions to this commission,” Rob Clancy said.

Residents also decried the loss of park and water views, as well as their own privacy, noting that the proposed hotel would have porches overlooking their homes.

“The sheer volume of this resort being proposed …  is quite inappropriate for a 150-year-old residential neighborhood,” Toni Dorsey said.

Longtime Wayland avenue resident Lee Jackson Van Allen said her view would be completely blocked by the proposed hotel.

“[It] will bring increased density and overcrowding, a loss of privacy, a loss of sunlight and airflow [and] increased dust and noise,” Ms. Van Allen said.

Citing another scheduled hearing on Sept. 18, hearing officer Douglas Sederholm continued the Ocean View Hotel testimony to Oct. 23.