The Rental Registry

It’s about the money, and it’s about the desire of some, if not many, East Hampton Town landlords not to see the party end.

Seeking to reduce the overwhelming number of illegal group rentals, too much turnover, and so-called party houses, the East Hampton Town Board has for months been contemplating a registry system. Its goal would be to provide law enforcement with adequate tools to make sure landlords comply with existing regulations.

Think of it this way: If enough landlords were following the law now, there would be no need for additional bureaucracy. If self-regulation, as the opposition to a registry seems to favor, really worked, there would be no need for the proposed measures, right? While many landlords operate within legal bounds, the registry is a creation of a collective failure to do so by others. Those who say that the town should enforce the laws on the books are missing the point. Frankly, the registry is an admission that the rules the town has now are difficult to enforce and that better tools are necessary.

One commenter on a website run by the registry’s opposition added what may have been unintended honesty, implying that income-tax cheats had better watch out because the town “can and probably will” provide the rental list to the state and Internal Revenue Service. He or she neglected to mention cash-strapped Suffolk County, which loses out on piles of money annually from short-term leases, which probably should be paying 3-percent hotel-motel taxes.

At next Thursday’s hearing on the registry, the town board should turn the tables and ask the no-registry speakers what kind of regulation they would find acceptable. Would a free registry be okay? What about one in which tenants’ names were not required? If the answer is no registry at all, officials will get a pretty good sense of what the town is up against.

Taken together, it all adds up. Excessive turnover, people crammed into shares, and short-term leases have helped contribute to a sense that East Hampton has surpassed the limits of its geography and infrastructure. It is sad, but not all that surprising, that the anti-regulation crowd fails to see this. The registry is one way to restore the saner, more peaceful East Hampton that most residents really want.