Katama Meadows

Get involved!

The next public hearing for the Katama Meadows project is currently scheduled for Thursday, March 19, at 6:30 pm at the office of the MV Commission. Please attend in person (Stone Building in OB) or on Zoom and voice your opposition, and/or send a written comment via email to DRI Coordinator Rich Saltzberg (saltzberg@mvcommission.org). Every comment, no matter how short, is important because it shows the breadth of community engagement with the issue. Meeting info, including Zoom links, can be found via the MVC calendar.   

Why VCS opposes this proposed subdivision

Currently under review by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission as a Development of Regional Impact, “Katama Meadows” is a proposed subdivision of 54.4 acres near the Edgartown Great Pond. This land represents one of the last remaining intact stretches of open space in this part of the island, serving to protect groundwater and the Great Pond, sequestering carbon, and providing habitat connectivity for native species. As proposed, about half of that land would be deforested to create:

• 26 market rate lots for five-bedroom houses up to 3,800 sq. ft. (not including basement, garage, and 400 sq. ft. detached bedroom)
• 12 lots to be sold to year-round residents making up to 250% AMI (currently $375,250 for a family of four) to build their own homes (up to 4 BR)
• 14 more lots to be donated to the town of Edgartown, ostensibly leading to future construction of affordable housing.

Environmental Concerns

If approved, Katama Meadows would ultimately result in 52 new houses comprising up to 234 bedrooms, all sending their wastewater to the Edgartown Great Pond watershed, increasing nitrogen loading and harming the ecological health of the pond. In addition, the development would cause significant habitat destruction (including state-defined Priority Habitat), lost carbon sequestration and groundwater pollution attenuation, and increased traffic and light pollution in an already rapidly growing area.

For a good synopsis of the environmental impacts, as well as why this project is not a good fit for the Island’s housing needs, the recent letter from the Edgartown Climate Committee is highly recommended. In addition, VCS has offered testimony multiple times regarding previous iterations of the project (e.g. March 2025, June 2020 & Feb. 2019), most recently arguing that the latest revision to the plan is not meaningfully different from the previous submission. See also the testimony from our colleagues at BiodiversityWorks and the Great Pond Foundation regarding impacts on habitat and wildlife, and the ecological health of the pond, respectively.   

The Review Process

The proposal being reviewed now is the latest chapter in a story that began in 2018, when a subdivision plan then known as “Meeting House Place” was first referred to the MVC as a Development of Regional Impact (DRI). That plan, which was revised twice during the process (first to include ten townhouses, and later 14, both efforts to mitigate its impact on housing affordability), eventually came to a vote in 2020, resulting in the very rare outright denial of DRI 682B. Since then, the developer sued the Commission over their decision, and, when the Superior Court found in favor of the MVC, appealed that decision. Last year, they filed a new subdivision proposal including the new housing offers described above, which started an entirely new review as DRI 773. In late 2025, that proposal was withdrawn and immediately resubmitted with minimal changes – a tactical maneuver to secure a more favorable political environment at the town level – resulting in the review being restarted this year as DRI 780. Due to the change in DRI number, the testimony record created under DRI 773 will not be included in DRI 780, necessitating the resubmission of written and spoken testimony by all concerned.

The wrong plan for the island

As we explain in our recent testimony, the current proposal is effectively the same as the previous one. Perhaps more important, though, is that the negative impacts – on the environment, traffic, community services and character – are not substantially different from the very first version that arrived nearly eight years ago. Through all the revisions, one element has remained: the creation of a suburban style subdivision of very large houses, which will mostly be investment properties and short term rentals, on one of the last large tracts of intact habitat in the area. So long as that remains the core of this project, it is hard to imagine how it can ever truly be a net benefit to the Island.