Island Voters Reject Rezoning Proposals To Facilitate New Community Housing Project

"The NIMBYism in the room right now is breaking my heart," island resident Emma Young said during Tuesday's Special Town Meeting as voters considered several warrant articles that would have facilitated a privately-funded workforce housing development at a former junkyard property off Woodland Drive.

Responding to what she described as "Not In My Backyard" arguments against the proposal put forward by Stephen Maury, Young's argument ultimately left most of those in attendance unconvinced. Despite strong endorsements from island housing advocates and members of the Select Board, Maury's citizen petitions were all defeated by wide margins.

"I'm at a loss," Maury said as neighbors and others pushed back against the rezoning and sewer district articles that would have allowed him to redevelop the former junkyard properties on Woodland Drive, owned by Maury, and Skyline Drive, owned by Clifford Williams, into a single-family home developments for year-round residents.

On Tuesday morning, just hours before the start of the Special Town Meeting, Maury placed deed restrictions on the properties, requiring that they be occupied by year-round residents, prohibiting them from being rented on a short-term basis, and restricting the maximum sale price to be affordable to those making up to 240 percent of the island's area median income. Maury said the development would be modeled on the town's "friendly" 40B project off Surfside Road known as Sachem's Path, which includes 40 deed-restricted homes for individuals and families making up to 150 percent of the area median income. 

Despite those assurances, neighboring property owners on Woodland Drive and Skyline Drive criticized the density of Maury's project - which would have required rezoning from LUG-2 to the less restrictive R-5 and R-20 zones - along with the potential for additional traffic and impacts on infrastructure.

"That is a drastic, drastic change, and I think that sets a bad precedent for future development on this island," said Matthew Peel, who sits on the board of the Surfside Neighborhood Association, which he said voted unanimously to oppose the warrant articles. "The density of this project, I just think it needs to be rethought."

Skyline Drive resident Graham Kilvert also spoke out against the articles.

"Mr. Maury and Mr. Williams knew what these properties were zoning when they bought them, but it doesn't provide them sufficient profit, so they basically have gone back and played the affordable housing card in an effort to increase density to a level that's unprecedented in this neighborhood," Kilvert said. "These two projects alone will triple the traffic in this neighborhood. The need for affordable housing is great, but it needs to be better located."

Maury countered that the properties already abut densely developed land such as the Richmond Great Point subdivision, so it made sense to build the project nearby. He stated the land had already been singled out by the town as a prime location for housing development in the recent Housing Production Plan and that there aren't any other properties on the market on Nantucket currently zoned to accommodate the kind of attainable housing he wants to build.

"This project is not asking for a single dollar from the town," Maury said. "This is year-round housing being built by private developers at affordable prices with a first look to town employees and non-profits."

Maury found support from several affordable housing advocates, including Housing Nantucket executive director Anne Kuszpa, the current and former municipal housing directors Kristie Ferrantella and Tucker Holland, along with Tobias Glidden, who co-sponsored the $20 million affordable housing article that passed Town Meeting back in 2019.

"This town has committed a huge amount of money to affordable housing and done a great job of building some, but not fast enough," Glidden said. "The reason why we're not fast enough is you need developers to develop stuff fast. Towns are a little slower, they do a good job, but developers do it fast."

While the articles had received negative recommendations from the Select Board, Finance Committee, Nantucket Planning and Economic Development Commission, and Planning Board, two Select Board members - Matt Fee and Brooke Mohr - spoke out in favor of the proposals on Town Meeting floor.

"It's the right scale," Fee said. "If we can't build it on top of what was a junkyard, where can we build? If we can't improve a junkyard to put 40 families and cottages there that are in keeping with the island, then where are we going to put it? This will be the cheapest and quickest and smartest housing that is put on the island."

Woodland Drive is located off Skyline Drive and backs up to Richmond Great Point subdivision off Old South Road. The two properties were sold to Maury for $3 million in May 2024 by the estate of Walter Glowacki to Woodland Limited Partnership. The two properties are a combined 4.8 acres of land.