Updated Oct. 1.
Islanders may have noticed a new nursery pop up on Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road recently; 17 acres of sparse activity suddenly featured bright green leaves peeking through landscaping fabric and work trucks with Donaroma’s signature circling in and out.
More than nine acres of the parcel of land slowly sprang to life over a number of months in the 2026 off-season: White fabric over dome-shaped greenhouses appeared in the winter, plants emerged from pale brown soil in the spring, and a wide array of plants and flowers are now potted around the perimeter.
The property is called Jordan’s Nursery, and is located at 218 Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road. It’s before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC), although public hearings have been rescheduled several times. The property involves three separate well-known names on the Island, including a former Edgartown selectman and large housing developer. Michael Donaroma, owner of Donaroma’s Nursery, Landscaping, and Floral Design, subleases the property from William Cumming; the land is owned by Bayes Norton Farm.
The site plan for Jordan’s Nursery includes greenhouses, retail sheds, workplace housing, an office or warehouse, 77 parking spaces, hazardous-material storage, and a retention pond.
The nursery has a storied history, much of which is available for view through the MVC but has not been discussed by commissioners yet.
After being approached by concerned community members regarding the potential environmental impact of Jordan’s Nursery, The Times looked into the materials at hand regarding the ownership, the use, and the concerns, many of which are yet to be discussed publicly. Concerns include increased nitrogen loading and water runoff as the property is located on the Lagoon Pond watershed.
The land is owned by Jamie Norton, a generational Islander who also owns Bayes Norton Farm, which is just down the street from Jordan’s Nursery. The Jordan’s Nursery site falls under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 61A, which reduces property taxes to preserve agricultural or horticultural land. In order to maintain those lower taxes and that designation under the law, however, the land can’t be “nonproductive.”
In 2020, Bayes Norton Farm and Atwood LLC entered into a long-term agricultural lease. Atwood LLC is owned and operated by Vineyard housing developer Cumming. Cumming is the largest local developer in recent years of Chapter 40B housing projects, including Edgartown Gardens. Chapter 40B is a state statute that allows developers to bypass local zoning if at least a quarter of the units proposed are deemed affordable.
After the MVC unanimously denied Edgartown Gardens last October, a development near Donaroma’s (and in partnership with Donaroma), Cumming and his attorney, Jay Talerman, submitted concerns about the MVC’s denial to the Housing Appeals Committee (HAC). The HAC then ruled the MVC was not a “local board,” which has thrown their jurisdiction over housing developments proposed under Chapter 40B into flux. The MVC pushed back. In a letter to the editor by MVC chair Peter Wharton, he asserted that the MVC is “the Island’s first line of defense against overdevelopment.”
This May, the MVC and Edgartown zoning board of appeals filed a challenge against the HAC and Edgartown Gardens LLC.
According to materials submitted by Cumming to the MVC, Atwood LLC (Cumming) approached three Island agricultural businesses in 2021 to build up the land at 218 Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road. One of those businesses was Donaroma’s Nursery. Donaroma agreed to get involved, and a lease was formally documented in 2025 for 7.5 acres for Jordan’s Nursery.
Then, from 2022 to 2024, Donaroma installed infrastructure at the site, like water, gas, and electricity, as well as polyhouse greenhouses. Since then, the site has been slowly built up with materials, operations, dirt roads that cut through the center, and signage. A well was also drilled on the property in 2023, which the nursery now utilizes, along with minimal pull from town water sources.
Donaroma and Cumming are driving the nursery project forward, while Norton has stated in letters to the MVC that he supports their plans, and is looking to eventually sell plants from Jordan’s Nursery at his farm.
“In 2026, Jordan’s Nursery announces plans to introduce retail sales at Jordan’s location and begins a join[t] venture with the Norton Farm farmers market,” the materials Cumming filed with the MVC state.
The nursery is before the MVC after being constructed because the group is looking to expand those retail operations, including the installation of a glass greenhouse for the store, which Donaroma told The Times will be about 3,000 square feet in size.
Prior to MVC referral, which was submitted by Oak Bluffs building commissioner Adam Petkus on April 6, the project was under the purview of Oak Bluffs officials, mostly under the previous building inspector in Oak Bluffs, Matthew Rossi. According to Cumming, Jordan’s Nursery was built under Oak Bluffs bylaws that allow agriculture on parcels of five acres or more by right in residential, business, and healthcare districts.
Petkus told The Times that while he didn’t start the review of the project, he was happy to continue it and refer it to the MVC. “The commission has been reviewing it ever since,” he said in a phone interview.
When asked whether he’s heard concerns about the project, Petkus said much of the reviews were conducted before his tenure, but that he referred the project to the regional planning group because of the scope of the retail operations and the potential for mixed-use buildings on the land, such as housing.
“We need to make sure that the Island, as a whole, is protected and that the watershed is protected as well,” Petkus said. “But that doesn’t mean that scaled projects like this one can’t be done appropriately; they just need to be protected, and answers to the questions need to be responded to.”
According to Cumming, the nursery is for agricultural use and therefore falls under the Dover Amendment (Massachusetts General Law Chapter 40A), which exempts owners and landlords from a number of local zoning restrictions and regulations if the use of the property is religious, educational, or agricultural.
Cumming told The Times that Jordan’s Nursery is exempt from any regulation outside of bulk, height, setbacks, yard sizes, lot sizes, open-space requirements, parking, and building coverage, as outlined in the Dover Amendment. In MVC materials, however, the Dover Amendment is not invoked.
Now that the project is before the commission, it must abide by the MVC process, which includes a water quality policy, a regulatory framework which aims to ensure that large projects don’t overly impact water quality, pond health, and groundwater. According to the Oak Bluffs Water District, Jordan’s Nursery poses a potential concern to the district because of the amount of water used.
“The degree of concern would depend on the proposed withdrawal rate, seasonal demand, well location and depth, hydrogeology, and potential interaction with district sources,” the department states in a question and answer about Jordan’s Nursery.
Jordan’s Nursery being located on the Lagoon Pond watershed, a 4,000-acre area which is especially sensitive to added nitrogen due to the deteriorating health of Lagoon Pond, raises additional worries. These include eutrophication, which is a process where excess nitrogen that leaches into water leads to toxic algae blooms, resulting in dead zones and decreased oxygen. Several considerations that arose in the MVC materials were related to the potential impact of fertilizers, including organic ones, on a watershed with such sensitivity. All fertilizers, even organic ones, contain nitrogen.
George Saunders, who has been a hydrogeologist for around four decades and has worked on previous projects before the MVC, stated in a letter to the commission Wednesday that he has significant concerns about Jordan’s Nursery and its effect on the watershed. He wrote that the “submission does not adequately describe the nursery’s anticipated fertilization, irrigation, storm water management, pesticide use, or the assumptions used to calculate nitrogen loading.”
In his letter, Saunders urged the commission to ask for more information from the applicants and noted the sensitivity of the Lagoon Pond watershed to any increased nitrogen. He also named per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as an additional worry and wrote that PFAS have been detected in Oak Bluffs municipal wells since testing began in 2020.
“The proposed nursery would involve extensive use of synthetic materials, including landscape fabrics, greenhouse coverings, plastic containers, irrigation components,and other materials,” Saunders wrote. “The current submission does not, in my opinion, adequately identify these materials or evaluate whether any have the potential to contribute PFAS or other contaminants to groundwater.”
He added that he’s “not suggesting” that any materials at Jordan’s Nursery contain PFAS, rather that more information is needed because of the nurseries’ proximity to public water supply areas.
According to MVC materials, Rich Saltzberg, the DRI coordinator for MVC, asked Donaroma over email this May whether hazardous materials, like fertilizers, would be stored at Jordan’s Nursery. Donaroma wrote back that “other than two propane tanks above ground, there will be no hazardous material stored at Jordan Nursery. My fertilizers, fuels, etc., have always been stored off this site, and have no intention of adding to this site.”
Donaroma did state to The Times, however, that he intends to move a portion of the nursery and retail operations in Edgartown to Jordan’s Nursery over time.
“I’m completely organic,” Donaroma noted in an interview. “I think the main thing to understand is: I’m not a farm. I don’t grow things in the ground. I don’t rototill the ground. I don’t fertilize the ground. I don’t spray anything on the ground. I have some landscape fabric that covers the ground everywhere, including in the greenhouses. I grow everything in pots. I’m a container grower, so whatever I put in the pot has to go through the pot and be absorbed by the plant.”
The MVC staff report, however, states that even “containerized plants” could affect the health of the Lagoon Pond watershed, especially those that have been imported to the Vineyard from elsewhere, which many of the plants at Jordan’s Nursery have been.
“Containerized plants that are subject to irrigation and have previously been treated with fungicides, herbicides, and pesticides could, over time, potentially, present a pollution burden for the Lagoon Pond well,” the report states.
Cumming told The Times that concerns about nitrogen-loading are nuanced, largely due to housing development and pre–Title 5 septic systems, and are the reason for the comprehensive wastewater management plan (CWMP) on the Island.
“We have a nitrogen problem from the legacy homebuilding, and the towns have a plan to address this longstanding source of nitrogen overloading as part of their CWMP,” Cumming wrote. “There are state and federal laws to allocate the responsibility of the pre-existing wastewater nitrogen pollution. The towns’ CWMP are rectifying this problem. That is what a CWMP is for.”
Editor’s note: Updated to add information about a Massachusetts Housing Appeals Committee ruling involving the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and William Cumming.
