The Martha’s Vineyard Commission will decide this week whether to review as a development of regional impact (DRI) a plan to build a private golf club on some 200 acres of Edgartown Great Pond land.

At a public hearing on Thursday night, the commission will discuss the referral of the proposal by Martha’s Vineyard Golf Club Inc. and Meetinghouse Golf L.L.C., a group which wants to build an 18-hole golf course on the MacKenty land in Edgartown.

The MacKenty and Bigelow families have signed an agreement to sell some 200 acres of their Edgartown Great Pond land to Rosario and Barry Latucca, a father and son team from Natick. The Latuccas hope to build an 18-hole golf club on the property.

The golf plan had its first airing at a public hearing last month before the Edgartown zoning board of appeals. The Latuccas have applied for a special permit for a private, nonprofit club, a conditionally permitted use under the Edgartown zoning bylaws. The application has not been accompanied by any real plans outside of a preliminary routing plan which was unveiled at the hearing.

The board of appeals voted to refer the plan to the commission for review as a DRI, a special review process for developments which is allowed under the MVC enabling legislation.

Because the referral was made under the cross-town referral criteria on the commission checklist, a public hearing is required for the referring board — in this case the zoning board of appeals —to explain its rationale.

The commission is expected to accept the referral. MVC executive director Charles Clifford said this week that the point of the hearing is largely to hear from the board of appeals and also other town boards that will eventually issue permits for the project.

He said spokesmen for Meetinghouse Golf will also be present.

“I assume that the plan will be accepted as a DRI,” Mr. Clifford said.

If the commission votes to accept the referral, then a review process will be triggered which includes a public hearing before the commission. Mr. Clifford said the hearing will likely be held in Edgartown, and depending on when the applicant is ready, the hearing may not take place until early fall. At the board of appeals hearing last month, more than 150 people jammed the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown.

The Latuccas have assembled a team of environmental experts who are now conducting an array of studies about the impact of the golf course, if it is built.

Another golf course project off the West Tisbury Road in Edgartown is also expected to come before the MVC for review some time this summer. Two Boston area businessmen and a Mississippi real estate developer are working on plans to build an 18-hold private golf club on the former Vineyard Acres II property in the rural perimeters of Edgartown.

Swanson Ventures L.L.C. announced its golf project plans last month. The group is expected to follow a similar course as the Latucca group, although no application has yet been submitted to the Edgartown zoning board of appeals.