Short-term rentals and affordable housing were the main topics of discussion at last night’s Board of Trustees meeting in Greenport Village.
A recent proposal by the board to amend the current rental law code does not address short-term rentals and the consensus at a public hearing on the proposal last night was that it should.
Presently there is no mention of limiting short-term rentals in the proposed law, Mayor George Hubbard said. The proposed revisions focus on preventing unsafe conditions and clarifying terminology, but do not address requiring permits for short-term rentals.
Hubbard stressed that the purpose of the public hearing was to take input from residents, tenants and landlords and to get feedback regarding the rental law in order to come up with a new draft that would be good for the village.
Greenport resident Chatty Allen said that any place that rents should be required to have a permit, including short-term rentals. She added that from her observations, short-term rentals that are not owner-occupied “become free-for-alls. They’re unsafe, too many people and no one governing anything.
Mindy Ryan, a Greenport resident who rents part of her house out short-term in the summer supports Trustee Roberts’ proposal to limit the number of short-term rentals in the village. She also stated that without the income from the rental, she and her family would be unable to afford to keep their house.
Pointing out that the code doesn’t address short-term rentals, Doug Moore said that short-term rentals should be treated differently from long-term rentals and felt that a minor expansion of the B&B code could solve some of the issues.
The popularity of Greenport Village as a vacation destination has created a shortage of affordable housing for the local work force as investors and second-home buyers snap up properties, leaving few affordable units available for year-round renters.
Several people took to the podium to share their stories and ideas for solving the issue.
Ryan proposed allowing Front Street building owners to add apartments above their businesses, creating both high-end and rent-controlled apartments.
Andrea Kavajian expressed her frustration with the housing market, saying that she grew up on the North Fork and had always hoped she could buy a house there.
“I have a college degree and a good-paying job, but I am barely able to afford to rent,” she said.
She added that many of her friends had either moved away or were still living with their parents.
“Something needs to be done,” she said, “because clearly whatever is in place right now is not working.”
Longtime Greenport resident Arthur Tasker asked the board directly what they were going to do about providing affordable housing in the Village of Greenport.
“We have no vacant land for building affordable housing,” Hubbard answered.
“We tried that in the past in the spots we had and that’s all that we could do.”
“There’s only so much we could do,” added Roberts, who proposed acquiring community development money to do a housing study. He cautioned against “a bunch of non-experts” trying to solve such a big problem.
Trustee Julia Robins proposed partnering up with Southold Town on a more “intense level” and lobbying the town to step up on the issue.
Roberts agreed and moved to send the Southold Town Board a letter asking them for a meeting to discuss it.
Fifth Street resident John Winkler said that the village spent a lot of money to get the tourists to come here and once they came, there were unintended consequences which need to be dealt with. He suggested hiring a professional planner to deal with the many issues at hand.
The hearing was adjourned and held open for further discussion at a future date.
