Demo litigation moves to superior court

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The property is owned by the Sawyer family, who say the structure is beyond repair. — MV Times

A lawsuit filed last year by the owners of a historic house in Oak Bluffs against a local review board’s denial of a request to demolish their house on Uncas Avenue has been transferred from Massachusetts Land Court to Dukes County Superior Court. 

This comes after the title owner of the property, Robert Sawyer, filed and later withdrew an application with the Copeland Plan district seeking to demolish a building at 3 Uncas Ave. in Oak Bluffs — a four-bedroom house with a one-bedroom cottage — and rebuild it to accommodate a number of workforce housing units. 

The Copeland Plan district review board, charged with overseeing specific zoning regulations of an overlay district that includes 3 Uncas Ave., must review all proposed changes or modifications to property that falls within that district’s boundaries. 

Last year, Sawyer wrote a detailed email withdrawing the application, arguing there was too much oversight. The project needed approval from three separate historic commissions — Cottage City Historic District commission, Copeland Plan district, and Oak Bluffs historic commission — what Sawyer called “triple jeopardy.” 

The project would have also required permits from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and the zoning board of appeals, along with obtaining a demolition permit. 

The building, listed on the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS), is located within both the Cottage City Historic District and the Copeland Plan district, and is estimated to have been built in 1874 as part of the Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Co. development. 

A refiling of the application in August of last year claimed that alternatives to demolition were not financially feasible, and included the report of a structural engineer, who stated that the residence “was not suitable for human habitation, and should be demolished.”

But a month later, the Copeland Plan district review board voted to deny the demolition request “based on the fact that it does not meet the requirements of Copeland and is an elective demolition,” according to the board’s meeting minutes. 

In their lawsuit, filed in Land Court in October, the owners, operating as Flowerwood LLC, argue that the board failed to issue their written decision regarding that denial, which effectively approves the application “by inaction,” per the town’s zoning bylaws. They request that the court order the reversal of the demolition denial. 

On March 9, the lawsuit, which specifically names the six members of the Copeland Plan district review board, along with the town of Oak Bluffs, was moved from Massachusetts Land Court to Superior Court, and is currently pending. 

8 COMMENTS

  1. This place looks to have been blipped on to over the years, not to mention severely neglected. Sometimes common sense needs to reign supreme and allow demo of a building that’s obviously been allowed to rot and decay beyond reasonable repair. Can we stop treating all old, rotten, moldy structures as important historical monuments? Especially when workforce housing is the alternative? There can be homage paid to the original architecture.

  2. This is what happens when you put people on public boards and commissions that for the most part have no qualifications to be there. Not sure of the current make up of all these boards and their qualifications but historically these boards behave by feelings and not by facts. This is why we are seeing more decisions going to court because of our various governmental boards voting with their ideology. As taxpayers we foot, the bill for all these legal costs, which have been running into the millions the past few years. We have the high school going after the town of Oak Bluffs and we get to pay the lawyer fees on both sides of that one. At least with the outrageous MVC legal bills we’re only paying one side.

    • Bob, I totally agree. When the regulations, if there are any, don’t fit a commission/board members ideology, they ignore them and vote for what they “believe in” and not follow the intent of the position they hold. This is what happened in OB with the field project. When the town rules, regulations, and facts didn’t fit with the PB Chair’s wishes, he ignored them and he pushed for a special permit, even after his board rejected the need for one. However, when the rule requiring a 2/3 vote, because of the 2-2 split vote by his board to provide the special permit after the building inspector required one, he used the rules to his favor. I still wonder how the need for a special permit got back to the planning board, but that is a topic for another time. Keep them honest, that is what we do here in these comment pages. Keep it up Bob.

  3. The problem is what will prevent the owner from changing the use to weekly rentals after the “workforce housing” is approved? Nothing. There is no consequences for those of have taken advantage of this process in the past and this is a huge contributor to why we are in housing crisis for essential workers.

    • Why are vacation rentals now such a bad thing. Literally thousands of islanders depend on them for income. Do away with vacation rentals and you do away with all the jobs that are dependent on them.

  4. People need to stop confusing old with historic. I grew up in one of the oldest houses in the town in Maine where I grew up. It’s been in the family at minimum 6 generations. And unless you count my being born in that house, I guarantee you, nothing important historically ever happened there. It’s just told.

  5. “…an elective demolition,” ?
    How about we spend some serious money on legal fees and wait for a few teenagers to break in and have something tragic happen ?
    Yeah, it’s an old building– Nothing in the article mentions anything about something “historic” happening there.
    We have a housing shortage, and a bunch of sanctimonious stuffed shirts won’t let a person who owns the liability of an uninhabitable structure to tear it down.
    Is that house in America ? You know, that place where people can own property, and have some freedom about what to do with it ?
    One commenter is concerned that the owner MIGHT use it for “weekly rentals”.
    Ok, what is the problem with that ? I keep hearing about how all those weekly rental people are driving the market up.
    It’s insane to just wait for a tragedy and then offer thoughts and prayers for anyone or their families that may be affected but any future tragedy. This is an accident waiting to happen.
    And let’s say the town wins the suit– then what ? Back to court in 20 years to force the homeowner to tear it down ?
    Can anyone offer a sane rationale for this ?
    PLEASE .

  6. It’s too easy, and too common, for houses to be demolished by neglect. Don’t do basic maintenance and for sure the home will become “beyond repair” and another part of the historic fabic of the Vineyard will be gone and replaced by a bloated structure out of scale and character with the neighborhood. As for town boards, yes, they’re volunteers, giving immense amounts of their time to protect a place they care about. If you don’t like the decisions, why not volunteer yourself?

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