During Monday’s meeting of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee, Eric Schantz, East Hampton Town’s director of housing, gave community members the opportunity to weigh in on affordable housing — and the apparent lack of it in their hamlet.
The East Hampton Town Board in 2022 launched an initiative called All Hands on Housing, which has since put multiple affordable housing projects into motion. So far none of these newer projects, however, are in Montauk.
But that doesn’t mean the hamlet won’t ultimately benefit from the new community housing fund, established by voter referendum in 2022. Through this program, a .5-percent transfer tax on real estate transactions above a certain threshold has created a pot of money to be used specifically for affordable housing. So far, Mr. Schantz said, it has amassed $7.5 million.
“Montauk is just like every other hamlet within East Hampton,” Mr. Schantz said. “There is a significant problem with housing,” he said, citing affordability, availability, and the need for businesses to find places for seasonal workers to live.
The latter, Mr. Schantz said, “is uniquely important to Montauk.” It’s called employer-sponsored housing. “The idea is to create a condo development,” he said. “Employers will buy some of the units and have them available to staff.”
Businesses would use the units specifically for their own staff or rent to other workers in the town. For Louis Cortese of Montauk, a guest of the citizens advisory committee and member of the town planning board, this raised questions.
“I’ve got nothing against it, and I do recognize the need for work force housing just as much as anyone else,” Mr. Cortese said. “If you’re going to have private businesses look for that kind of investment to house their workers, I’m afraid that they’re going to compete and price-out senior citizen housing programs and people who just need affordable housing.”
Mr. Schantz responded by noting that the permitted density of the units would be increased from eight to 12 per acre, to increase the number able to be built. Additionally, he said, work force housing would need its own zoning district, separating it from both senior citizen and general affordable housing projects.
“The next time the town board considers it,” Mr. Schantz said, “it’s going to be in the form of a new zoning district.” He later added that “the traditional affordable housing is only going to be permitted on certain properties, and it’s going to be different properties that might get this new overlay designation.”
Another question came from Kathy Weiss, a committee member. “Has anything been considered for strictly seasonal employee housing?” she asked.
This question was handled by Town Councilman David Lys. “Those have actually been in the town board docket to be discussed a couple of times,” he said, “but it’s not in the code, so you have to [first] define what it would be in the code to try to move forward with it.”
Adjusting that code is a priority for the board, which is invested in hearing from people in Montauk, Mr. Lys said. “We’re trying to understand how the community is right now, currently in 2024, and adjust the codes effectively.”
