Innovative Means To Affordable Ends

Although it would be hard to find a neighborhood that could be described as a slum in East Hampton, there are pockets throughout town where conditions are deplorable.

The 22 families and senior citizens who live at the Three Mile Harbor trailer park know what we are talking about. They live there because the rents are low, but cesspools frequently overflow, the drinking water contains a gasoline additive, and the situation continues to deteriorate.

The owner, Theresa Streibel of Montauk and Florida, collects about $330 a month rent for each homesite. That comes to some $87,000 a year for maintenance, operation, and taxes. Since that seems enough to keep the place clean and safe, we must assume that there are circumstances beyond her control that make it impossible. After years of tenants' complaints the trailer park is still obviously substandard.

Mrs. Streibel has been summoned to Justice Court twice, but, from an enforcement perspective, the town's effort to improve things has not been a success. Perhaps that is for the best.

Eight years ago, the residents of Lower Shepherd's Neck in Montauk pressured the town to do something about the overcrowding, garbage, rats, and leaking cesspool at Woodrow's Cottages. Three levels of government came down like a ton of bricks on the landlord and found themselves involved in an expensive chase through the courts for years afterward. Before it was over, the tenants, Latino families with modest incomes and small children, ended up homeless in the middle of a February freeze.

The town has withheld Mrs. Streibel's operating permit for two years, to no avail. This year it also withheld a permit for a trailer park at Lazy Point in Amagansett owned by Andrew C. Ingraham, who is, coincidentally, Mrs. Streibel's lawyer. His tenants have formed a tenants association to document the complaints and help them speak with one voice.

It took years for the Three Mile Harbor tenants, and only with the assistance of the Town Housing Office, to take matters into their own hands.

Because New York recognizes mobile home parks as a form of affordable housing worth subsidizing, the Housing Office was able to get the state involved. The goal now is for the tenants to form a cooperative, obtain low-cost financing to buy the property, and find grant money to correct the health code violations.

If the deal goes through, the tenants could see their living conditions greatly improved without an increase in their monthly costs, according to Nina Stewart, the housing director. Mrs. Streibel has had the park on the market for years at an asking price $575,000. An appraiser hired by the state has, however, said $360,000 would be more appropriate, given all the work that needs to be done.

As it turned out, the town wound up meting out harsher punishment to the tenants of Woodrow's Cottages, albeit inadvertently, than to the owner. Thanks to a law sponsored last year by outgoing Councilman Thomas Knobel that established safety and health standards for mobile homes, however, Justice Court can now fine an owner who operates a mobile home park without a permit as much as $1,000 per week - or impose a six-month jail sentence.

For two decades, East Hampton Town has had a good record in providing affordable housing. It has helped build rental apartments and single-family houses for those with modest incomes. Now the town is taking another, and innovative, step toward helping our residents help themselves.