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While other East End municipalities have been exploring ways to provide more affordable housing, the Village of North Haven is taking a decidedly different tack by creating a system by which residents would be allowed to apply for permits to provide separate apartments for parents or children in either an attached portion of their home or in a detached accessory structure such as a garage or pool house.
The board tweaked the proposal at a work session on Tuesday, May 23, and plans to notice it for a public hearing when it meets on June 21. If all goes according to plan, a hearing could be held at the board’s July 19 meeting.
Trustee Claas Abraham, who has been shepherding the effort along, said it had its genesis about nine months ago, when he and Mayor Chris Fiore where at Village Hall when a resident came in, asking if it would be legal for her to create a separate living space in her home for her mother.
The village only allows single-family houses, Abraham said, but both he and Fiore thought the matter worth exploring.
The homeowner wanted to give her mother “a dignified, dedicated living space, with a bath, kitchen, living room and bedroom,” Abraham said. “She didn’t want her mother to live in her house, but if her mother wanted to join the family’s life, it would allow her to do so.”
A committee that included Abraham, Trustee Dianne Skilbred and several residents expanded the idea to include children and health care workers, such as live-in nurses.
“We made it clear this is not affordable housing. This is not income property,” Abraham said, explaining that homeowners would not be able to directly charge rent for the apartments, but could work out an independent arrangement by which an adult child, say, could help cover the expenses of a typical household.
Under the program, an accessory apartment could not exceed a property’s existing coverage limits, and apartments could be no larger than 750 square feet. Height limits and parking requirements outlined in the code would also have to be met.
The law contained a provision that would have required the units to be vacated and secured if a property was rented for the summer or for longer than six months. Abraham said the idea was to prevent people from possibly renting to multiple people and to prevent the potential for summertime disturbances from loud tenants. But board members struck those restrictions from a draft law at Tuesday’s meeting, reasoning that if a family went to Europe for the summer, for instance, a parent or child might not be accompanying them on the trip and making them find a short-term dwelling would be onerous.
Fiore added that having a family member on the property would likely reduce the attractiveness of a house to renters, but if property owners want to settle for a lower rent for their house, while a relative occupied an apartment, it should be their right to do so.
The board also agreed to limit to 10 the number of permits that would be issued in the first year, should the law pass. Permits would have to be renewed every two years.
Under the law, if a property is sold, the family accessory living space permit would automatically expire and the kitchen would have to be removed unless the new owners applied for their own permit.
Homeowners caught renting the apartment separately would lose their permit and be ordered to pay a $5,000 fine. The certificate of occupancy for their home would be voided until the kitchen is removed or a new permit applied for after a mandatory six-month wait.
A second violation would result in the revocation of the permit for good, a $500-a-day fine until the kitchen is removed, and the voiding of the certificate of occupancy until the kitchen is removed.
Stephen J. Kotz on May 24, 2023