Optimistic Proposals for Work-Force Housing

Central to the new East Hampton Town hamlet studies are recommendations about one of the greatest challenges: how to increase the supply of houses and apartments that the town’s working people and other residents can afford. Meanwhile, a proposal to pay for other answers to the housing shortage via an additional real-estate transfer tax has been put forward at the state level by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr.

East Hampton Town has been a leader among local governments making an attempt to solve a decades-long housing imbalance. Now, as real-estate prices rise — and much of the lower-end housing rental market is sucked up by short-term visitors using online booking agencies — the shortage has become severe. 

The issue ripples across the local economy as businesses may not be able to pay their employees enough to find adequate places to stay. In East Hampton Town, Democratic board majorities have tried with some success to meet the need, as has an independent housing authority. The town also has sought to create incentives for private property owners to add apartments or convert outbuildings into code-compliant rental units, subject to strict limits. But the need remains.

Enter the authors of the new hamlet plans, who seem to have tried to consider work-force residents at every juncture. In Wainscott, for example, new and renovated commercial buildings would ideally have second-floor apartments. Also, the sand mine and cement plant north of Montauk Highway would be home to a new combination of single-family houses, commercial-industrial uses, and a park. An affordable housing district could be on a portion of the sand mine site, as well as at the sand pit on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton.

Upgrades to an ad hoc affordable housing area on North Main Street in East Hampton could be planned, provided steps were taken to deal with the wastewater flow that increased residential density would create. At the former Stern’s store on Pantigo Road, housing could be added in a mixed-use development. Apartments also could be encouraged above existing businesses along Amagansett’s Main Street.

For Montauk, the plan’s authors have suggested new solutions for both year-round and seasonal workers, something many businesses would benefit from. Among these are more second-floor apartments, promoting existing rules that allow apartments on residential lots, and “small house” and other alternative kinds of semipermanent dwellings, especially in the dock area. Another idea is for a seasonal housing district in which residences in existing commercial districts might be allowed to double the town occupancy limit of up to four unrelated adults to a maximum of eight with no more than two per bedroom. All of these would necessarily be tied to the town’s ongoing study of new wastewater treatment options.

Mr. Thiele’s proposal might just be the  fuel needed to help make the town planners’ vision become reality. In a bill he wrote, a surcharge on high-end real estate transactions would bring in an estimated $15 million, which would be made available as loans to first-time homebuyers, repayable upon the sale of the house. If approved in the State Legislature, the program would not go into effect until it was okayed in a local referendum.

The need is obvious as many workers and young families are faced with the difficult choice of whether to move away. Supply could be increased through the programs outlined in the new town plan. The means to pull it all together for new homebuyers could be found in Mr. Thiele’s bill. In all, this is an optimistic moment for solving the housing crisis in East Hampton and elsewhere on the East End.