Long before anyone drew house lots in Katama, farmers drove livestock along a narrow track from Edgartown Great Pond to Swimming Place Point. From there they swam the animals across Katama Bay to graze on Chappaquiddick. The route first appears in the record as a "cross path" in 1675. Today, much of it is a thin dirt trail between Road to the Plains and Herring Creek Road, so overgrown in places that the public can't get through.
This fall, that trail has become one of the clearest lessons in Edgartown about what a buyer owns. In 2024, a title search found that the town doesn't own Swimming Place Path. Roughly 75 percent belongs to the Edgartown Estates Homeowners Association, and the last 750 feet or so near Road to the Plains crosses four other privately owned parcels. Those owners hold title, yet the town's zoning still decides what can happen on that strip.
Settling ownership didn't change the zoning
Edgartown voters approved $66,420 in Community Preservation Act funds in 2022 to restore the path, assuming the town owned it. The 2024 title search showed it didn't. A reasonable buyer might think that settled things in the private owners' favor. It settled who holds title. The zoning is a separate question.
Swimming Place Path is a designated Special Way under Edgartown's zoning bylaw, as amended April 14, 2026. It was designated at a 2008 special town meeting. That designation sits within the Island Road District, a District of Critical Planning Concern created by the Martha's Vineyard Commission. The Commission's decision designating the district treats special ways as a cultural and historic category, and it says designation doesn't decide or change whether a way is public or private. Edgartown's bylaw takes the same position from the other direction. When the Planning Board approves relocating a portion of a Special Way, the bylaw says it is "beyond the jurisdiction of the Planning Board by such action to either grant or extinguish public or private rights-of-way that may exist in the Special Way."
For any lot that touches an ancient way, ownership, the zoning overlay and any public right to pass are three separate matters. Each one is answered by a different document and a different authority, and the answers can disagree.
What the 40-foot corridor rules out
The bylaw defines the Special Way Zone as the land within 20 feet of either side of the way's centerline. On a lot beside a designated way, that corridor can reach well into what a buyer might picture as lawn, garden or a spot for a future deck. Inside it, the bylaw says:
- Development and use can't block walking, horseback riding or bicycling along the way.
- The way's width and surface materials can't be altered, apart from routine maintenance and repair.
- No impervious paving is allowed, except at crossings approved by special permit.
- Existing vegetation can't be removed beyond keeping the way clear, with limited exceptions such as clearing done before December 1, 2007.
- No fences, walls, structures, excavations, fill or obstructions may be placed in the zone. Construction and clearing that existed before the rules may remain but can't be expanded.
Smaller lots get one carve-out. On lots under one acre, fences are allowed in the zone if they are at least 50 percent transparent, such as split-rail or picket, and they meet these minimum setbacks from the centerline:
| Fence height | Along a Special Way | Along a Special Vehicular Way |
|---|---|---|
| Under 4 feet | 5 feet, or 1 foot outside the top edge of the embankment, whichever is greater | 1 foot outside the traveled width |
| 4 to 6 feet | 10 feet | 10 feet |
Vehicles are the other limit. Special Ways are for nonmotorized travel unless a segment is mapped as a Special Vehicular Way, or the Planning Board finds after a public hearing that active vehicle rights existed before the designation. A new driveway entrance, a new curb cut or more vehicle use than before needs a special permit. Any permit that lets a way be used or widened beyond 12 feet requires review and approval by the Martha's Vineyard Commission. In practice, a privacy fence, a driveway cut or a cleared view line can each require a separate approval on a lot like this.
The bylaw describes Swimming Place Path as starting at Meshacket Road and running southeast along specific assessors' lots on Map 28. This fall's news coverage describes the restoration stretch as running between Herring Creek Road and Road to the Plains. The MVC decision says its written boundaries override any map. For a particular parcel, the legal description is what matters, along with a surveyor who reads it against the assessors' lot numbers.
Why the trail keeps coming back
The overlay explains why a path through private land keeps reaching town agendas. The Martha's Vineyard Land Bank wants to restore public trail access with a natural-surface footpath about six feet wide for walkers, nonmotorized bicycles and horses. The MV Times reported that Land Bank trail planners Bill Veno and Emily Josephs argued in an August filing that long-standing "public right to pass" laws trump private ownership. They also noted that most ancient ways on the Island are owned by abutting residents, who usually own only to the centerline. The Land Bank first proposed a wider gravel path, then scaled the plan back to clearing a route five or six feet wide.
On Sept. 15, the Edgartown Planning Board voted 3-2 to recommend that the Select Board enter into a land management agreement with the Land Bank. Planning and zoning administrator Brae Eddleston explained to The MV Times that the Planning Board has no jurisdiction over that agreement itself. Steve Ewing, who represented the Land Bank in Edgartown, told the meeting that "a lot of people consider these paths as assets," according to the Vineyard Gazette. Many abutters at the meeting opposed it, citing privacy and safety.
Town administrator James Hagerty told The MV Times at the end of September, "I don't see that getting actioned anytime soon." He pointed to neighbor pushback, unclear title and designs he didn't think worked. He also noted that without a Select Board agreement, the project can't go forward. Through 2024 and 2025, the Select Board went a full year without acting on the project. So a stalled trail plan doesn't mean the issue is over. The Special Way Zone stays in force while the trail question waits.
There is precedent elsewhere on the Island. In 2011, the Massachusetts Appeals Court upheld a Superior Court ruling that the public has a right to use Rogers Path, an ancient way in West Tisbury, after years of public use and town work on it. On privacy, Veno and Josephs wrote that the Land Bank has worked with landowners in every town on screening plantings or fencing. They recommended a property-by-property assessment with each landowner. They also stated that when the Land Bank obtains a trail easement or enters a trail management agreement with a town board, it indemnifies the landowner or town against damages. That indemnity is the Land Bank's stated practice. No Swimming Place Path agreement exists yet.
The land next door is unresolved too
Part of the path runs beside the 54-acre Katama Meadows property off the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road. On Oct. 15, the Martha's Vineyard Commission voted 10-3-1 to deny the Katama Meadows subdivision after a 19-month public hearing and review, as the Vineyard Gazette reported. The commissioners had already cut the market-rate lots from 26 to 19 in July. Alongside those lots, the plan had 26 income-restricted lots, plus bans on swimming pools and lawn fertilizer. The owners bought the land for $6.6 million in 2017. They have been in court with the Commission since an earlier subdivision plan, Meetinghouse Place, was denied in 2020, and the Gazette reported that this decision makes further legal action nearly certain.
For anyone weighing a property near this corner of Katama, the open questions add up. The trail awaits a Select Board decision that hasn't been scheduled. The large parcel beside it may head back to court after its denial. And the Special Way Zone limits the strip between them no matter how either question turns out.
Three documents, three answers
On a Katama lot that touches an ancient way, a careful review usually draws on three sources:
- The title work and survey. These show who owns the ground and where the boundaries run. On Swimming Place Path, this is how the 2024 search found the land in private hands.
- The overlay. Edgartown's bylaw and the MVC's Island Road District decision set out what can be built, fenced, cleared or paved within 20 feet of the centerline, whoever owns it.
- The record of public use. The question of public rights is separate from the first two. As Rogers Path showed, it can end up in court.
The questions worth putting to your own attorney and surveyor follow from those three. Does a designated Special Way cross or border the parcel, and where is its centerline? Do any existing fences, sheds or cleared areas date from before the rules, and so qualify to remain? Is the driveway on a mapped Special Vehicular Way? Is any trail agreement or easement pending with the Land Bank? Earlier we wrote about how West Tisbury's floor-area cap separates house size from lot size. Katama has its own version of that gap between what the deed shows and what the lot allows, and it runs along the back line.
A few questions we hear often
Is this only a Katama issue? No. The Island Road District covers special ways across the Island. In a notice dated December 2025 and posted in January 2026, the Commission announced that it had designated portions of Mud Puddle Road and Old Sailors Burying Ground Road in Tisbury as Special Ways, adding three segments totaling about 0.6 miles. Our comparison of Katama and Chappaquiddick covers the broader differences between those two Edgartown settings.
Can a Special Way be moved off a lot? Edgartown's Planning Board can approve relocating a portion after a public hearing. It has to find that the move preserves the way's continuity, creates trail connections, increases public access, improves safety or otherwise benefits trail users. Relocation can't create or extinguish existing rights-of-way.
Is the Swimming Place Path trail approved? Not as of the latest reporting. The Planning Board's 3-2 vote was a recommendation, and the Select Board hasn't taken up a land management agreement.
Does the Land Bank's public-use policy apply to the path? The Land Bank's public-use policies govern properties the Land Bank owns outright. Any arrangement on Swimming Place Path would come through an agreement with the town.
This post is general information about public rules and local reporting, not legal advice. Before relying on any of it for a specific property, confirm how it applies with a real estate attorney and a licensed surveyor.
If you're weighing a Katama property where an old cart path runs along the back line, Studio Realty can walk the lot with you. We'll look at where the corridor sits and, with Morgan Studio, sketch what a design could do within it. Request a private consultation.
