When the house next door went up for sale, it didn’t alarm Mary Bernadette Budinger-Cormie, known as “Berni.” It happens all the time on the Vineyard. When the house sold, it didn’t alarm her. She was glad someone bought it. When contractors walked around the house, conferring, measuring, making plans, even that didn’t cause any alarm. She thought, “Maybe the new owners were going to fix the place up.” But “the minute they bulldozed the house without any notification,” Berni says, “we had heard rumors, but nothing official — it lit up my radar.”
Berni doesn’t consider herself an alarmist, but she was now alarmed. She isn’t an activist, or she wasn’t until recently. She had two careers — caterer and school grant writer. She loves her neighborhood, her town, and her Island. She raised her family here. Those bulldozers not only demolished the house next door, they changed her life — Berni now has a third job as an elected MVC commissioner. And they also put her in opposition to the developer of the property, Xerxes Aghassipour, who has also been outspoken about the need for the kind of housing he is building. The developer, who purchased the property in 2022 for $1,085,000, says now that Berni is a commissioner, he welcomes the chance to “roll up our sleeves and figure out how to do this.”
Bernie was elected Tisbury representative to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission in town elections on Nov. 5. For months leading up to the vote, Berni made a stand for her Vineyard Haven community and brought the issue of developer-led, workforce housing to the fore — garnering 4,669 votes for MVC commissioner. What follows is the story of her stand.
“It was personal,” she says; “I sobbed when I saw those bulldozers.” She had a sentimental attachment to the house. Her family had lived there temporarily when their own house had a major fire, and she had brought her newborn son to the house from the hospital.
“For two summers he [Aghassipour] had four J-1 students living there who worked at Stop & Shop. That was our first experience with workforce housing. There was talk that the developer wanted to do more,” Berni says. Just how much more wasn’t yet clear. “When the demolition came, it was a shock because no one had been notified. We didn’t think that was even possible,” Berni says. “We knew the house was old.” (At this stage, “we” was mostly just Berni, with some help from her husband.) “We thought there was a whole process that had to happen.” After the house was demolished, she says, “we asked a lot of questions, but we didn’t get a lot of answers. I asked the building inspector, the building department, and select board members. We reached out to a lot of people from the town,” but all they heard was, “It’s going to be a nice single-family house.” She thought, “OK, if so, that’s fine.”
“When the foundation went in, and it was absolutely enormous, we asked more questions: ‘That’s really big for a single-family house. Are you sure?’” says Berni. The answers from the town were, “Yes, it’s single-family, single-family, single-family. Nothing to worry about,” Berni says.
She had a persistent feeling there was something to worry about. She set out to see the construction plans. “Once I got my hands on the plans, there was no way you could say this is a single-family residence. Nine en suite bedrooms, seven washer-dryers, and nine parking spaces.” She finally got a copy of a notification of a zoning board appeal to “modify a nonconforming pre-existing structure.” “We were shocked,” Berni says, “because you can’t [modify] a nonconforming pre-existing structure if the structure is completely gone.”
She began to get help from neighbors and friends, including an attorney. Soon after, Ron Rappaport, one of the Island’s experts on the subject, offered his services. (Sadly, Ron passed away not long ago, but not before his firm, via Michael Goldsmith, helped Berni’s group navigate some of the hurdles.) What nagged at Berni and her neighbors was how the developer was able to have this multiple-dwelling project given the go-ahead in the first place. They discovered that contrary to permits and approvals from the town governing bodies, the house was over 100 years old, built in 1902. By its age it should have been declared historical, and such radical changes would have been prohibited under Tisbury bylaws.
They met with the developer. Berni recalls, “He came into our home and told us a lot of things that he thought we wanted to hear. Like that no one’s going to have a car. They’re all going to be working, and we’d never see them.” He did not say exactly who was going to live in the house, but he did mention Vineyard Wind, Stop & Shop, or M.V. Hospital employees. He said that he’d “be the perfect landlord.” He acknowledged that the use of the house would be as a multiple dwelling, not a single-family home.
It seemed to Berni that the phrase “multiple dwelling” clarified that the project was not residential, but commercial. She also recalls the developer mentioning it was Vineyard Wind/GE Renewables that had retained him and his company. According to Berni, the developer said they had hired him to provide housing for the purpose of housing their employees, as she understood it, on a rotating basis. She was concerned a worker could come onto the Island for a specific assignment, then leave. Another specialist might come. She thought rooms might be shared by more workers. Berni said the developer mentioned they would rarely have cars, as the workers could walk to the Vineyard Wind office.
From midsummer 2024, Berni and her group ran a campaign to raise awareness. She had yard signs printed up protesting the housing project: ‘Save Our Neighborhoods’ with a red slashed circle around the number 97 (the Spring Street address). She knocked on doors, called and emailed, recruiting neighbors to create a viral lawn sign campaign all over Tisbury: “Even if our voices couldn’t be heard, our message would be seen.” She had a website built, and has pushed all of the boards involved to re-examine the records and decisions. She gained support from residents in neighboring towns with similar concerns about zoning.
Berni believes this is not a Spring Street problem, or even a Tisbury problem. It is an Island problem, and the entire issue should be brought in front of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission: “I am a firm believer that if this goes through as intended, it will negatively impact all of us, because the gates are open zoning; bylaws are broken irrevocably, and at that point, how can you turn down people [developers] going forward?” Recently, Berni was asked by the Tisbury zoning board if there might be a compromise that would satisfy her group and the developer. She says that it would take an agreement that legally bars this kind of outcome.
The feeling Mary Bernadette Budinger-Cormie had about the house next door became a cause. She asked herself, “Are we crazy to pursue this?” but insists, “We either have rights as property owners and citizens, or we have nothing.” She is not opposed to workforce housing. As a caterer, she often has to help find housing for her staff. “Ultimately, I’m trying to save existing year-round housing by stopping big business from buying up and chewing out residential units that could be for year-round people, instead of giving them to people who are coming for short-term intervals … executives and workers who live elsewhere … to use the property like a hotel. I will keep it up until we all win.”
The developer of 97 Spring St., Xerxes Aghassipour, was reached for comment about the controversy surrounding the property and about Berni’s stand. He said, “The opposition on Spring Street put a light on the fact there is no process, there are no bylaws for workforce housing. Bylaws need to be written and followed. The town needs to put down the bylaws, present, and codify them — then everyone has a clear path. How can we retroactively apply it to 97 [Spring St.]? I’m hopeful, now that Berni is a commissioner, we can roll up our sleeves and figure out how to do this.”
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission will convene this evening. One agenda item is to determine if 97 Spring St. will be a development of regional impact (DRI).
