To the Editor:
The following comment was also submitted to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.
Please do the numbers. This Island is a finite piece of ground. Before you, in the aggregate, are proposals to add at least 500 bedrooms to the finite Island. (Yes, we know about the housing crunch. These units are not designed for year-round, moderate, or low-income residents of the island. Luxury McMansions and condos are not part of the solution. In all probability, geometric-progression-wise, they exacerbate problems.)
What are miscellaneous data and other numbers that 500 bedrooms represent?
How many more vehicles on the roads?
How many more students in the schools?
How much more water use daily (with Oak Bluffs already needing a new municipal well, costing millions)?
How much drawdown pressure on aquifer/water table?
How much saltwater intrusion can be managed?
How many extra SSA trips to keep grocery stores’ shelves stocked?
To remove trash and garbage generated?
How many additional municipal personnel (law enforcement, teachers, administration, all of whom need housing, salaries, and benefits)?
How much more pollution of harbors, bays, and estuaries is acceptable?
How much additional air pollution is an acceptable level?
How much expansion of hospital, medical, and veterinary services?
How much community dislocation and social ills (larger jail?) can we absorb?
All the above, and more, on a finite Island, with a finite carrying capacity, that is rapidly being urbanized, on your watch.
Back in the 20th century, the conventional thinking was that growth solved most problems, i.e., ‘broaden the tax base,’ and that there were no systems and problems that “growth” would not solve. Revenue would cover services.
However, even in 1997, a report for the town of West Tisbury “Report on the Cost of Community Services for West Tisbury” showed otherwise, that growth costs more than revenue it brings in. That has not changed.
We have witnessed that the costs and problems associated with “growth” cost far more to deliver than costs associated with trees and open space. It is never enough, and always requires more “growth” to retroactively cover the costs (salaries, benefits, expansions) already budgeted and incurred.
It is now the 21st century. Things have changed. Across the U.S. and globally, overtourism is destroying ”destination” communities. Here, we are well aware of the downsides of having become one.
Carrying capacity is finite and has real-life consequences. We know that our perks, such as clean air/water, are not inexhaustible. (The desire to preserve the “Island way of life,” while frequently touted in promotional material, has come to be treated like a quaint, cliché joke.)
Growth does not pay for itself. Islanders get to pay for the costs, and get the trickle-down. How much profit from growth goes into mainland pockets, mainland bank accounts, and other mainland, or even foreign, communities?
The finite Island of Martha’s Vineyard represents a common-pool asset to the Island community. This asset is “the nut” that needs your care and protection from rank exploitation.
It is the Island community that is the stakeholder group whose interests, welfare, and future, you, dear commission members, must summon the wisdom to defend most fiercely.
(Not an LLC from Utah. Not those here for a brief time-share. Not those coming for event programming.)
Abigail Higgins
West Tisbury
Yes!
Thank you, Abigail!