Stepping Back on Rental Registry

A widely decried proposal to require landlords to register with East Hampton Town before renting will be registered in the “no-go” column after the town board heard loud and clear from numerous residents who disagreed with the draft law.

During two lengthy discussions — in East Hampton last month and in Montauk last week — speakers told the board that the rental registry was invasive, that it would punish law-abiding landlords by imposing onerous regulations, and that the housing code violations the registry was designed to help eliminate could be addressed by more effectively enforcing current laws. 

Editorial: Short-Term Rental Headaches

Board members agreed at a work session on Tuesday to have Michael Sendlenski, a town attorney who drafted the rental registry legislation, identify elements of the law that could be incorporated into, and strengthen, the existing code, without establishing the registry itself.

An increase in fines for violations of the codes barring overcrowding, “grouper” rentals, and more than two short-term rentals of two weeks or less every six months is likely to be one measure that will be adopted. “The penalties don’t dissuade anyone. . . .” said Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc on Tuesday.

Mr. Van Scoyoc had pressed Mr. Sendlenski last week to describe “what specifically a registry would do to [better] allow code enforcement to enforce the laws we already have.”

The enforcement of most housing code issues would not be significantly affected by the existence of a rental registry, the attorney said. “Most of those things will be dealt with through other aspects of the code,” he said.

The one area where the registry would be a help, he said, would be in the prosecution of short-term rentals. Under the draft law, landlords would be required to register anew each time a rental occurred, or tenancy changed, so the town would have a record of how many separate rentals take place — provided a property owner has registered. Those who failed to obtain a town registry number would be fined.

Should a third, illegal, rental occur within six months, the violation could be prosecuted, Mr. Sendlenski said, without the effort of having code enforcement officers visiting a property to document the number of rentals, or of obtaining affidavits from tenants, or having them appear in court should the matter move to trial.

While a handful of speakers at both board sessions focusing on the registry idea, which mirrored a similar law in Southampton Town, described it as an additional, needed tool to help ordinance enforcement officers crack down on violators of all stripes, the majority at both meetings was vehemently against the proposal. Applause broke out often after comments made at a standing-room-only session at the Montauk Firehouse on Nov. 12.

“I don’t know that there’s going to beenough support in the community for a rental registry law,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said then, citing not only the comments of those at the board’s two meetings, but also emails and other conversations he has had with constituents. “I think there’s a serious lack of support for this.”

Board members and many speakers at the recent meetings — both for and against the registry — have acknowledged, however, the growing problems associated with violations of the town housing code and their impacts on neighborhoods and the community as a whole.

“There are too many people here; we must stop this somehow,” said Dan Briganti, a Montauk resident and supporter of the registry.

Bill Akin of Montauk said that, although the number of Montauk motels has remained static, and not too many new houses have been built, the hamlet has “become extremely crowded” over the last decade. A short perusal of the websites where ads for short-term rentals can be posted, such as AirBnB, turned up 1,415 properties offered, Mr. Akin said. “These are de facto motels,” he said, that operate without oversight by the fire marshal or the Health Department. “The technology has leapfrogged the town’s ability to govern,” he said.

“I pay taxes to live in a residential neighborhood, and I live in a motel zone,” he said.

The explosion in short-term rentals not only affects neighbors of those with disruptive tenants but has an overall effect on the rental market for locals and the seasonal workforce by reducing available housing, Mr. Akin said.

“This year was devastating to my family,” said Mike Martinsen, a founder of the Montauk Shellfish Company. He learned from his landlord in May that he had to move out as the property was to be used for short-term rentals during the summer. “Basically I ended up homeless with four children,” he said, adding that the family “had good tents.” Now, he said, he has a winter rental but fears he will be in the same position when that rental ends. “These people are using their homes as commercial entities,” Mr. Martinsen said.

In Springs, complaints have focused on overcrowded and substandard housing.

The problem, said Fred Weinberg, a resident of the hamlet, “is so entrenched that it’s going to take everything at our disposal.”

“We can’t have 10 people living in a basement in makeshift rooms with deadbolts, no egress, and septic systems that don’t work, where it’s gotten so bad in some of these homes that the landlords supply them with spackle buckets to take to the town dump. It’s a tool; we need the tool,” he said of the registry.

But overwhelmingly, the town board heard criticism of the proposed law.

Stuart Vorpahl, an outspoken and often colorful longtime resident of East Hampton, was perhaps the most pointed and direct in his criticism of the rental registry at last week’s meeting.

The registry proposal “kicks our founding fathers right in the teeth,” he said. “It’s onerous beyond description.”

He read quotes penned by Thomas Jefferson and from a book on the Declaration of Independence about the “danger posed to personal freedom by excessive government regulations.”

Mr. Vorpahl, and others, said that imposing a requirement on all landlords to register would be tantamount to punishing the many for the violations of a few. “You’ve got a dozen mosquitoes flying around your house,” he said. “You don’t take a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot them.”

“It’s become so expensive to live out here, our taxes are so high that a lot of us have been forced to rent our homes to subsidize our income to live here,” another speaker said. The board, she said, should look into how enforcement of existing codes could be beefed up, “and not to prevent us from renting our homes and just trying to make ends meet.”

The law would have required homeowners to certify that their houses were compliant with building codes, or submit to a town inspection. Certain conditions not up to current codes would be “grandfathered,” while other improvements could be required before a rental registry number would be issued — an unfair burden, speakers said. Criminal penalties outlined in the law would rope in unsuspecting landlords who did not intend to rent to groups, for instance, but who would have to follow lengthy legal proceedings to evict problematic tenants, others said.

Michael Griffith, an attorney, said that requiring landlords to provide details of rentals to the town is an “abuse of power.” After conversing with other local attorneys, he said that the town should expect legal challenges to a registry law, if enacted.

Several speakers in the real estate business suggested that the limits on short-term rentals should be lifted.

The market for seasonal, and even monthly rentals, “hardly exists,” Alexander Peters said. Short-term rentals are “what people can afford,” he said, to scattered applause. “Are you applauding to support weekly rentals?” Mr. Cantwell asked the people. “Yes,” they said.

Sarah Minardi, a broker with Saunders Real Estate, agreed. “It’s become a really big part of our community out here,” she said. “We rely on those people.”

Mr. Van Scoyoc expressed satisfaction with the discussion at its close last week. “I think the founding fathers would be proud,” he said. “Public discourse on topics that are important to the public — and we are happy to hear it.”