Challenges and Opportunities: Over the past generation, Martha's Vineyard, along with Nantucket, has experienced the highest growth rate in the Commonwealth. Strong planning efforts by the Martha's Vineyard Commission and the six Island towns have, to a great extent, succeeded in preserving the Vineyard’s community character, natural environment, and quality of life.

However, the Island’s community make-up, character and environment continue to face tremendous development pressure for growth and change. The Island population could grow by close to 70% if all “available” land were developed under existing zoning, and could more than triple if all seasonal houses became occupied year-round.

The Vineyard is facing many challenges that could seriously impact the Island.

• The skyrocketing cost of housing is making it difficult to maintain our diverse community and to house essential workers.
• Excessive nitrogen loading in coastal ponds threatens water quality; this could affect the environment, our quality of life, and the economy (notably tourism and commercial fishing).
  
• Traffic congestion at several intersections is approaching thresholds that could result in dramatic deterioration of conditions with only modest additional traffic.
• Development continues to sprawl into rural areas and along rural roads, undermining scenic values, consuming valuable open space, and damaging environmentally sensitive and highly significant natural resources, all of which are vital to the strength of our visitor-based economy.
  

Vineyarders can work together to face the challenges that threaten the aspects of the Vineyard that we treasure. But we can also seize the opportunity to make the Vineyard’s economy, ecology, community, and land better than they are today.

 
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