The East Hampton Town Board tackled a quirky piece of legislation at last week’s work session, involving the temporary storage of pre-fabricated homes.
“Prefabricated homes are built out of state and brought here,” said Jake Turner, the senior assistant town attorney. “Trucks that come here have to come late at night or early in the morning when there’s no traffic, so they can navigate the George Washington Bridge.”
The problem arises when those trucks arrive with their oversize loads. They often sit idling, sometimes for hours, while they wait for a local builder to arrive to pick up the goods. When the builder does arrive, again, often in the middle of the night, the clatter and commotion of negotiating the transfer of such a large structure often affects residential areas, leading to noise complaints. Alternatively, if the deliverer drops the structure in a parking lot, in the morning, people arrive to find it taking up many spots.
In 2022, the town passed a resolution allowing Code Enforcement to issue permits to store modular homes at a location for 12-hour increments. Mr. Turner explained, however, that “Now we need teeth.” The new language makes it a violation if a such a home is stored without a permit, which costs $100. Further, the new code applies to portions of modular homes too, not just the entire home. If a home is stored without a permit from the Building Department, the contractor would be subject to a summons.
“If you don’t have a permit, you’re subject to town justice court,” said Mr. Turner.
“We’ve found areas where it works better than others,” said Town Supervisor Kathee-Burke Gonzalez, mentioning that the Terry King ball field parking lot was a hotspot for such activity. “Kevin’s been great at figuring the best places to store these units,” she said, referring to Kevin Cooper, the head of Ordinance Enforcement.
“I’m supportive as well,” said Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte. “In a changing world, there’s things that come up that we might not have anticipated at one time, and this is one of them.”
At last Thursday’s meeting, the board voted to hold a public hearing on the changes on Dec. 5 at 6 p.m.
