House Rules

No one gets it right all the time, including this newspaper. We heard from several readers who thought the Gazette editorial last week unfairly suggested that our towns already have sufficient tools to regulate so-called megamansions and simply have not been tough enough. Not so, they said.

While on the surface the many layers of existing regulations at the town level may appear to provide sufficient coverage for controlling and regulating development, in fact this is not always the case. Among other things, state law prohibits towns from regulating homes based on size alone.

The latest example is the residential compound currently under construction in Chilmark that’s the talk of the town and beyond. Imposingly large, with a huge retaining wall and situated smack on the edge of Menemsha Pond, the house appears to meet all the pertinent rules in Chilmark.

We remain convinced that the character of a community should be decided on the town level. But the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, created more than three decades ago and vested with its unique powers to plan and regulate development on the Island, can help.

Rather than regulating megamansions via the commission’s so-called development of regional impact checklist, however, there is another way, also using the MVC enabling legislation that can provide towns tools they don’t currently possess.

The model town on the Island to look to is Aquinnah, which had the foresight to enact a townwide district of critical planning concern more than a decade ago. Using this DCPC tool that is available to every Island town through the commission, Aquinnah has crafted its own rules to regulate development. Incorporated into the town zoning bylaws, those rules are backed by the legal strength of the commission, whose legislation has repeatedly been recognized and upheld by the state’s highest courts.

And interestingly, you will find no megamansions in Aquinnah.