Beds Below a No-No

The question of whether East Hampton Town should continue to bar bedrooms in basements with tighter rules than those in place under the New York State building code was discussed at Town Hall last week.

Some residents cast the prohibition as a needed hedge against excessive occupancy and crowding in residential neighborhoods, while others framed it as a burden to middle-class families whose members are faced with a shortage of affordable housing here.

After several years during which a provision in the town code banning bedrooms in basements has apparently not been fully enforced, the town board held a hearing last week on a law “to reaffirm” the prohibition.

While the state Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code allows bedrooms in basements, the town opted decades ago to enact its own ban. Under state law, municipalities may enact more stringent restrictions than those of the state, but they must be reviewed and approved by a state “code council,” and meet particular criteria.

Liz Vail, the East Hampton Town attorney, said this week that the basement bedroom ban, which has been a part of the town code since before March 1985, has not been vetted by the state council. “That would typically happen after it is re-codified,” Ms. Vail said in an email.

No East Hampton Town law is included on a New York State Department of State list of approved “more restrictive local standards.” Local laws governing areas covered by state laws, such as the building code, that are inconsistent with state law and are not on the approved list cannot be enforced.

According to a town board resolution setting the reaffirmation hearing, which took place last Thursday, the board “believes that a prohibition on bedrooms in cellars is essential for the protection of neighborhoods . . . the prevention of overcrowding . . . and for promoting health and safety. . . .”

The resolution states that “allowing bedrooms in cellars would run contrary to all of the town’s current zoning regulations restricting house size and location in proportion to lot size,” and that “excessive underground expansion of living space is detrimental to the character of neighborhoods as well, as it alows for a greater number of occupants than anticipated on any given lot.”

The town’s zoning code and 2005 updated comprehensive plan were developed on the basis that bedrooms were not permitted in basements, the resolution notes.

The board also said that, because a typical basement is not considered a “story” under the town code, the space there is not included in the “gross floor area” of a house. “Theoretically,” the resolution says, “an unlimited number of bedrooms could be installed in the cellar of any given residence, regardless of the gross floor area limits on that property.”

An increase in occupants increases water usage and sewage flow, the resolution states, and increased sewage flow could be “expected to be detrimental to water quality throughout the town.”

Michael Forst, the president of Forst Construction, spoke to the town board last week on behalf of the Long Island Builders Institute, a trade group, and submitted a letter to the editor printed in today’s Star outlining his position.

He said that using basements to provide space for bedrooms is a “good use of resources, to keep the overall footprint smaller, by efficient use of the space,” and is consistent with green building techniques.

Safety concerns are addressed in the state code, he said, which contains regulations such as those requiring proper ingress and egress from basements, and the installation of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

With affordable housing in short supply here, he said, the ability to have bedrooms in basement space is “needed to meet a cost-efficient housing need” for some families. It could allow younger adults to remain in the community, in parents’ houses, he said.

“It’s sad that you’re trying to limit more of our rights in our own homes, and what we can do in them,” Wolf Reiter told the board. “Not everybody in this town is rich,” he said. There are some, he said, who might need extra space for their families and cannot afford to build an addition onto their house.

“You’re going to make it impossible to take care of family members,” he said. “You’re taking away all of our flexibility, for people with limited means, basically.”

“What I think this is going to do is to force the ‘little people’ in town into situations of illegality,” said Tina Piette.

Britton Bistrian also said that adding bedrooms in basements would allow middle-class homeowners to expand their homes within their means.” Should it be illegal, she said, it will occur anyway, but without compliance with safety codes.

John Woudsma, a building inspector for the Village of Sagaponack, said that use of the basement area for bedroom space “allows me to limit the mass of a house.”

Issues of illegal overcrowding can be addressed, he said, through the enforcement of restrictions on house size, the total number of bedrooms, and enacting other requirements, such as having homeowners provide parking spots on their properties to correspond with the number of bedrooms. “Consider other mechanisms rather than just this Draconian prohibition,” Mr. Woudsma told the board.

David Buda called the board’s new commitment to enforcing the bedroom basement ban a “very significant and much-needed change,” to re-establish an “essential and reasonable limit to growth that was recklessly disregarded by a previous administration three years ago, without any change to the zoning code.” Mr. Buda had complained several years ago when, under the prior town administration, building permits were issued for several residences with bedrooms in the basements, despite the prohibition in the town code.

“The enforcement of this common-sense law was suspended,” Mr. Buda said. The policy was “to the profit and benefit of the building community, and to the detriment of the residents of the community,” resulting in increased density. It was an “important factor,” he claimed, in the Ross School’s alleged plan to have two large houses built in Springs to serve as de facto dormitories for its boarding students.

Mr. Buda has argued that the town has the authority to set the bedroom basement ban, not under a building code, which could be preempted by state law, but under the zoning powers entrusted to local governments. “It’s a matter of zoning policy to limit growth,” he said last week.

David Milne, a neighbor of one of the houses that was said to be slated as a Ross School dormitory, also endorsed the basement bedroom prohibition. Neighborhood complaints and a public discussion of that potential led the school to issue a statement saying that it would not be using those houses as dormitories. “If we want to have multi-family housing, we should zone for multi-family housing.” Allowing a large number of bedrooms in houses zoned for single-family living would in effect turn them into multi-family dwellings, Mr. Milne said. The law “preserves the residential zoning of our existing neighborhoods.”

According to the resolution setting the hearing, “any parcel having a valid building permit and/or certificate of occupancy specifically denoting the presence of bedrooms in a cellar as of the date of this local law shall be exempt” from the prohibition.

The board did not discuss the matter further after closing the hearing.