Reform The NP&EDC

To the editor: I am writing in support of Article #16, which addresses the island’s growing needs for affordable housing, traffic mitigation, and environmental management by improving comprehensive long-range planning. The NP&EDC as presently composed has strayed from its mission of developing comprehensive plans for the island of Nantucket.

Nantucket is unique in being a town, a county, and a region including surrounding waters. It seems that not a week goes by when a letter is not written about one of the island’s chronic problems. And yet where are the solutions on the horizon?

The reconfiguration of NP&EDC represents a rare opportunity to think strategically and contextually about the problems that beset the island, by creating a more accountable Regional Planning Commission.

Nantucket’s government comprises boards, commissions, committees, councils, and advisory groups, many of them focused on the problem of the day. The Regional Planning Commission’s job is to span and bridge many of the issue areas that these groups were created to address, focused on the long term.

But, this commission cannot become the kitchen sink of all the other groups. Rather it has to be constituted to focus on the real issues of the island, the ones that threaten its survival.

As it stands now, there are three at-large members appointed by the NP&EDC. On a nine-member commission, the PB has a majority of the votes and thus can determine who gets selected as an at-large member. That, in my mind, is too much power.

Instead of three appointed at-large members, representing the community, there would be five, and they would be elected. These five would form the core of the new commission with one appointee each from the Planning Board, the Con Com, the Housing Authority, the County Commissioners, the Historical Commission, and the Land Bank (the total remains 11, as it is today).

Some may think that this is the kitchen sink but it is not because the representation goes to the heart of what Nantucket is and can be in the future. The new additions are the Historical Commission and the Land Bank. The very character of Nantucket’s historic neighborhoods and rural quality is being threatened. The battle to preserve the historic interiors of the authentic Nantucket houses has mostly been lost. The newer owners think nothing of slapping on a plaque stating the house is 18th or 19th century when in truth it has been demolished and rebuilt as a copy of itself. We used to lament that Nantucket was becoming Disneyland – now it’s a cross between Disneyland and the Hamptons.

The “Nantucket Regional Planning Commission” as described in article 16 would give real meaning to the word “planning.” As a revived and reconstituted Commission, it would get back to what it used to do thirty and forty years ago: creating a master plan for the island’s future. It would give content and substance to the notion of balanced growth.

The island cannot afford to rush blindly into the future. Personally, I worry about the survival of the island. This is a topic that many would prefer to avoid but it has to be tackled and it has to be tackled now. The Nantucket Regional Planning Commission is the body to do it.

Maureen Searle