The East Hampton Town Board is considering allowing multi-unit residences on housing lots as small as half an acre, which would include an increase of parcels in the town’s affordable housing overlay district and a revision of the town code. Right now, multi-unit dwellings are only allowed in those districts on lots that are over three acres.
“It would be a type of mini-affordable housing development that would be restricted to the A.H.O,” said Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte, the board’s liaison to the Housing and Community Development Department, speaking on behalf of Eric Schantz, the housing director, who could not attend Tuesday’s work session. Mr. Schantz’s proposal envisions a density of four units per acre, or two per half-acre.
“We haven’t gone too far into expanding the A.H.O,” the councilman told his colleagues. “We wanted to make sure that there was a use that the board was behind, and that the community was behind, before we started talking about making it larger. The goal here is to allow private owners to not only build new developments but perhaps convert old structures.”
Along with other town board members, he acknowledged that this is already happening illegally. “This allows for a safe and formal means to do that,” he said.
In the last year, the board has passed legislation that increased density on senior affordable housing developments, from eight to 12 units per acre, and is close to doing the same for regular affordable housing units. Members are awaiting comments from the Suffolk County Planning Commission before they can move forward with that.
Mr. Calder-Piedmonte noted that the affordable housing overly district’s three-acre specification was limiting. “We all know there’s not a lot of property in East Hampton that’s three acres or more,” he said. “One of the options was to simply reduce the acreage and say you could do an affordable housing development on two or one-acre lots. The problem with that is, we wanted to keep the scale and the aesthetic in fitting with the community character. If you’re talking about going from eight to 12 units on three acres, you can sort of center that and screen and buffer in ways that you just wouldn’t have the opportunity to on smaller lots.”
The plan envisions private ownership of the developments, which would contain rentable apartments, and a permit would be required from the planning board. Tenants would need to be residents of the Town of East Hampton, and there would be an income restriction of 130 percent of the average mean income in Suffolk County.
At present, that means an individual could earn up to $142,220 and be eligible to rent a unit. A maximum of six people would be allowed per unit, which equates to two per bedroom in the largest allowable (three-bedroom) apartment.
“The goal is not bringing in a bunch of new residents to increase our population, but to recognize the need to keep the people, the community that’s currently here, and our work force in place,” Mr. Calder-Piedmonte said. “The idea here is for these to look like typical developments that are actually housing more families. I think an example of what this might look like — it’s not a perfect example — but, the Accabonac Manor Houses.”
The board was supportive of the idea and discussed how expanding the A.H.O. into “semi-commercial” areas was a possibility. Before anything happens, the planning board will need to look at the proposal and offer comments. After that, a town code revision would require State Environmental Quality Review Act implementation and a public hearing.
“Anything we can do to deliver more housing at this point is the right path,” said Councilman Tom Flight.
Councilwoman Cate Rogers agreed. “The need for this, besides the lack of affordability for people to live in this town these days, is that there’s not many large tracts of land left. So, we have to flex and move with the reality that we’re presented with.”
