Island Plan

Island PlanIn the face of widespread concern about the future, from 2006 to 2009, the Martha's Vineyard Commission facilitated the preparation of the Martha's Vineyard Island Plan. The purpose of the Island Plan was to: Chart a course to the kind of future the Vineyard community wants, and to outline a series of actions to help us navigate that course. It was adopted in December 2009 by the Martha's Vineyard Commission.

The Plan describes some of the key challenges the Island is facing and outlines the community’s vision for a better future. The Plan also describes how to turn this vision into reality, with 207practical strategies involving business initiatives, educational efforts, incentives, projects, and regulations.

Thousands of Island residents participated through eight work groups, dozens of forums, and a series of surveys in defining what the Vineyard is and what it could be. Islanders examined the challenges facing the Vineyard and set proposals to deal with those challenges. The Island Plan gave members of the community the opportunity to step back from daily routines, look at where the Vineyard is heading, and identify how to readjust our direction.

Although the challenges are clearly significant, the Island Plan describes a confident vision for the future that reasserts many of the traditional principles that have shaped the Vineyard’s community, economy, environment, and land in the past. The Plan outlines how we can guide the ongoing evolution of Martha’s Vineyard so it best meets the needs of the people and of the Island itself.

The resulting Island Plan examines the challenges facing the Vineyard and sets out long-range goals and objectives in response. The Island Plan is a guide to keeping the Island safe, beautiful, healthy, and culturally rich—the best place it can be for our children and grandchildren. We can not only ensure that future development responds to community needs, but we can remedy the less fortunate results of past actions by bringing polluted coastal ponds back to health, by reestablishing fragmented habitat, and by restoring scenic beauty that has been compromised. The Island Plan is both a blueprint and a call to action. Now is the time to act.

The Island Plan section of the website is made up of the following sections.

Final Plan Documents

  • Island Plan Overview: This 24-page summary document gives an overview of the Island Plan. It was distributed to all Island homes. Free hard copies are available from the MVC.
  • Martha's Vineyard Island Plan: The full 198-page document takes an in-depth look at nine topic areas (see Table of Contents), summarizing key data, outlining challenges and objectives, and identifying 207 strategies. Hard copies are available for consultation at the MVC and in all libraries and town halls in Dukes County.

Supporting Documents

  • Business on Martha's Vineyard Survey: This 2001 survey of 161 businesses was prepared by the UMass Center for Economic Development on behalf of the MVC and the Martha's Vineyard Chamber of Commerce.
  • Visual Preference Survey: During the summer of 2005, the MVC conducted this survey to identify which components of the Vineyard’s environment people felt contributed positively or negatively to the Island.
  • Island Plan Survey 1 Results: This 2006 opinion survey identified people’s concerns about the future of the Island.
  • Leakage Analysis of the Martha's Vineyard Economy: (2007) This 2007 study by Michael H. Shuman and Doug Hoffer of the Training & Development Corporation provided a snapshot of the Vineyard economy, sector by sector; an assessment of current imports and import-substitution opportunities; and an analysis of the implications for economic development on the Island.
  • Economic Profile of Martha's Vineyard: This 2008 study by John Ryan, principal of Development Cycles reviewed a wide range of economic and demographic information for Dukes County in order to present an economic trends profile that reflects upon the key issues facing the Island.

Office location:

Office location:

The Stone Building
33 New York Avenue
Oak Bluffs, MA 02557

Telephone: 508-693-3453
Fax: 508-693-7894

Mailing Address

Mailing address:

Martha's Vineyard Commission
P.O. Box 1447
Oak Bluffs, MA 02557

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