As controversy over short-term rentals continues to rage in both Greenport and Southold, the Greenport village board said Tuesday that they plan to take a hard look at the issue.
In August, tempers flared as at least one village resident demanded answers about rental properties in Greenport.
Resident Bill Swiskey asked about recent rental activity in the village that he said is not regulated.
“One guy is advertising 12 beds above a restaurant and no sprinkler system,” he said.
Swiskey said he’d read the new village rental code and it’s “quite strict. Does this board intend to take action?”
Greenport Village Mayor David Nyce said he’d already taken action but added that the rental code applied to year-round, not transient rentals. He said he’d asked Village Administrator Paul Pallas to look into airbnb.com and other vacation rental sites to see “exactly what we can and cannot regulate, and when our code does and does not apply.”
This week, Nyce said the village would start rolling out the new rental permit law on November 1, by quadrant; however, the code does not address the proliferation of short-term, transient rentals advertised online.
On Monday, 5th Avenue resident Robert Kehl brought up the subject of short-term rentals, saying you can usually “spot” the properties rented out on sites such as airbnb.com or VRBO.com; the properties are vacation rentals offered by owners for short periods of time.
“They people that rent these apartments and houses bring a lot of money to our area,” he said. “They eat in our restaurants, shop in our stores, and visit our nightspots, farmstands, and vineyards. Most of these tenants are well behaved. No matter how well you screen them, you’ll always get a couple of bad apples. This goes for any type of rental. The only good thing is that they’re only here for a short period of time. They themselves will get a bad review on rental websites, and others will be reluctant to rent to them in the future.”
Kehl added that, if managed well, the rental homes could be a “great asset” to the villages “as most hotels, motels and B&Bs are booked solid.”
But, Kehl said, the properties must be inspected and registered with a yearly permit and certified for number of occupants. If the properties are not in a commercial zone, he said, they should be owner occupied; and, he added, accessory apartments should not exceed 800 square feet in the R-2, or one-and-two-family home, district.
Short term rentals, he said, are not “loading our school with children at $18,000 per child per year.” Kehl said the property owners pay more in taxes due to improvements made on properties.
Kehl also suggested a “moratorium on any new two-family houses in the R-2 district until this is figured out.”
In addition, Kehl said he’d like to see R-2 zoning changed back to R-1, as there are currently 75 to 80 percent R-2 properties in the district, with all applications for future properties going through both zoning and planning board first. “This wouldn’t be a guaranteed approval,” he said.
Short term rentals, he concluded “keep our property values up, where most two-family and Section 8 housing in R-2 drop property values.”
Trustee Julia Robins pointed out that Kehl operates a property advertised on an internet website.
Kehl responded that his property is commercial.
The mayor said there is a need to look at the “overall zoning of the village”, including the R-2 zoning. The board voted on Monday to pass it over to the code committee for review and recommendations.
As for the “airbnb situation”, Nyce said the discussion had come up several times over the summer. Pallas, he said, has been reviewing both the positive and negative comments and also, watching what New York State will do, in terms of regulations. Last week, he said, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman questioned the legality of the rooms. Meanwhile, he said Greenport would continue to look to address the issue locally.
Both zoning issues, he said, would be sent to the code committee. Those meetings, he said are open to the public.
Resident Doug Roberts said, regarding short-term rentals, the board should not “take away anybody’s ability to earn an income,” but also does not “want to take away taxpayers'” rights. The key, he said, is to regulate the rentals while still allowing property owners to earn revenue. Neighbors of such properties, he added, should be notified.
“These are not the people who are ruining the fiber of the community,” he said. “They bring in money.” Roberts said some don’t want different people coming to their neighborhoods every few days but said those who are “partying, or being abusive” could be reported and fined. On the whole, he said, “It’s not the worst thing for people” to earn income from short term guests.
On the subject, at the village board’s work session last week, Trustee Mary Bess Phillips asked that the attorney general’s opinion be printed out for review and passed on to the village attorney.
Nyce said due to the proliferation of short-term rentals, the number of available properties for Section 8 individuals “have dwindled. People are earning more money doing” online rentals. “We’re having the same issue as New York City, where they are trying to push people out of rent stabilized apartments. It’s a multifaceted issue,” the mayor said.
Robins said the “relatively new” internet rental phenomenon could have “profound affect on the village.”
Also in August, in Southold, residents worried that a steady proliferation of short-term rentals could spark a sea of wild party houses and drunken crowds on quiet Southold streets came before the town board to ask for help — and the board said they are studying other town codes to see how to address the growing problem.
Southold Town Attorney Martin Finnegan said staff had “looked into it” and had set up a code committee meeting to look at options.
Other towns and villages, including those on the South Fork, and Greenport, have rental legislation on the books, Finnegan said. “There are options, ranging from a registry type law to out-and-out prohibition of certain types” of rentals, depending on the definition of “transient”, he said.
East Hampton, Finnegan said, prohibits transient rentals in their zoning code and has registry regulations. “But enforcement is always an issue,” he said. Justice Louisa Evans agreed. “The enforcement issue is huge,” she said.
Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell said the board was in the process of finding out what codes have been adopted in other towns and evaluating what, if anything, needs to be adopted in Southold. “The town has not taken a position,” he said.
Cutchogue resident Ned Fowl asked the board to “please stop short term housing rentals” and said six homes had been recently listed in Cutchogue’s Fleets Neck community on airbnb.com. One party on Stillwater Avenue lasted from 3 p.m. until 4 a.m., when the police were summoned due to the loud noise, he said. “They are equivalent to the helicopter noise,” he said. “There’s no peace and quiet, no sleep. They’re ruining our quality of life. Where does the business district end and the residential begin. Who’s paying taxes? The IRS should be looking into this.”
The new home rentals have check in and check out times, just like motels and hotels, he said. And, he added, “We don’t feel safe because we don’t know these people. These people are just strangers injected into our community. Normallly I don’t lock the door to go to King Kullen, but now that there are strangers here, I have to lock the door.”
Suggestions from the public included that any Southold Town rental have home and swimming pool inspections annually for safety; the homes should also be inspected for CO2 and smoke detectors, as well as whether or not the legal number of bedrooms are being rented, to prevent overcrowding of renters into basements and other hazards. Residents suggested rental owners must register, and pay a fee. “Please do not let us become an overflow town,” Fowl said. “People can make it over from the South Fork quite easiily. We live, or have moved out to, Southold for the country atmosphere. Please enact regulations to preserve our pursuit of happiness in the future.”
Russell said he had not been aware of the extent of the issue until a recent East Marion community meeting but said the comments from the public echoed many of the concerns he’d been hearing recently from town residents.
East Marion resident Linda Goldsmith said, after her hotel reservation was lost, she was able to find a room in someone’s guest house on Cape Code. She suggested the short-term rentals should be asked to register and said the town should not “overregulate”.
“It’s a tough balancing act,” Russell said.
Resident Susan Switzer said there are noise ordinances already in place that need to be enforced. Councilman Jim Dinizio said the short-term rentals should have adhere to the same rules as B&Bs, which, he said, must be owner occupied. “There is a reason for that.”
The new crush of short-term rentals is “unfair competition” to the B&Bs, he added.
At a previous town board meeting in August, Lori Hollander of Greenport said there has been a rental issue problem created by “escalating short-term rentals on the North Fork.”
The popularity of the area as a destination has grown rapidly due to a series of articles on the North Fork in high profile publications including the New York Times, Forbes, USA Today and others, as well as through television ads, she said.
And, she said, the proliferation of online rental sites, including airbnb and VRBO — or Vacation Rental by Owner — had led to the ability for many to rent their homes for as little as a day or a week, she said. “These short-term rental problems are beginning to affect our North Fork community,” she said. A quick glance at VRBO revealed 88 such properties available in Southold, 61 in Greenport, and others in Jamesport, Laurel, Orient, and Peconic, she said. “And that’s only one of the sites,” Hollander said. “Anyone living in a residential neighborhood can now find themselves living next to an unregulated B & B or a transient hotel. It’s escalating like crazy because of these online sites.”
Hollander asked that the Southold town board look at amending its rental code “before the situation gets out of hand”.
Other East End towns, including East Hampton and Southampton, have revisited their code to put the brakes on an uptick in party houses, she said; code enforcement exists in those areas so the neighbors are able to report issues and fines can be levied.
Councilman Bob Ghosio said he’d just heard of the issue for the first time recently. “There must be an uptick,” he said.
Hollander said online rental sites have shown “astronomical” growth. At that meeting, Dinizio said he invited some of the residents in the audience because the problem exists with a home in his community.
One woman said unregulated rentals pose dangers, with limousines, drinking, and quality of life concerns.
“Being involved with the town as long as I’ve been, we’ve tried to protect our neighborhoods,” Dinizio said, ensuring that new B & Bs were owner-occupied with enough parking outside
Under town code, he said, transient motels are allowed under resort residential zoning, not in residential zones.
Greenport resident Adrienne Greenburg described her concerns. “How would you like to be sitting in your home when all of a sudden, three or four cars or a minibus pull up and people pour out, making noise all night and drinking?” She added, “I like to know I can walk out of my house and know my neighbors and feel safe. The most important thing is I want to feel safe. But with new people coming every weekend, transients, it’s not a safe feeling.”
She suggested others go online to see just how many weekend, daily and weekly rentals are available “on your block. If it’s not there today, it will be.”
Russell said in the past, when struggling to pay his mortgage in May, he had considered renting his home, but had never done so in the end. “I had no idea this problem existed so far and wide in Southold,” he said.
Hollander said it was not her goal to stop people from renting their homes, but she was concerned about the one or two-day rentals. “If they’re coming for two weeks or a month, they are more conscious of the neighborhood, or responsible. If they’re coming for a wekeend, it’s usually to party.”
Peter Terranova of Peconic said people could be out on the North Fork on a winery tour, then use their smartphone to find a one-night rental and decide to “crash” rather than heading back to the city. “As much as I hate governmental interference, if it’s interfering with our quality of life, I think the town board should look into it.” Also an issue, Dinizio said, is the house in question sits on a 70-foot wide lot, not an acre. “The neighborhood tends to get overcrowded,” with up to nine people in the house at once, compared to four in the past, he said.
A Cutchogue realtor added that requests for short-term rentals have doubled in the past year, with two or three requests a day.
