Paying The Price

Something needed to be done at the Bel-Aire Cove Motel in Hampton Bays—that much was clear. So in many ways it was a positive step forward when the Town of Southampton agreed to buy the blighted property last month for a little more than $1 million.The two-story, 19-room motel, on the shore of Penny Pond, in keeping with the changing nature of Hampton Bays, had long ago transitioned from an affordable waterfront family vacation spot into a year-round residence for laborers, as impractical—and illegal—a use as that is.

By many accounts, the motel was infested with bed bugs and roaches, and overflowing septics polluted a nearby canal that flows into the Shinnecock Bay. The motel was in violation of local zoning, which stipulates that visitors may not stay in a room for longer than 30 consecutive days. It became the focus of civic groups intent on shutting down illegal motels and housing in the hamlet.To address both the conditions surrounding the motel and the zoning issue, the town agreed to step in and purchase the motel so it could be redeveloped. Because of the septics and underlying zoning issues, the motel’s owners had been unable to sell it on the open market, with potential developers fearing they would have difficulty in obtaining permits to redevelop the property.Instead of finding a way to redevelop the motel as affordable or workforce housing—an idea that seemed to be an obvious trade-off, especially with the town taking it over—the plan is to raze the building, upgrade the septics and come up with a redevelopment plan to allow a private entity to buy back the 1.3-acre property, to build a handful of full-market-value condominiums or townhomes.

As atrocious as conditions at the motel were, it had become home to some of the area’s neediest workers and families, who were unable to find shelter at reasonable rates in a community sorely lacking in affordable workforce housing. And it’s those workers, unfortunately, who are going to have to pay the price for the town’s plan to improve the blighted property.

Under the terms of the purchase agreement, the motel’s owner, Hampton Bays resident Jagannath Jayaswal, must evict all of the current tenants before the town will close on the property. They were given 30 days’ notice and must leave their homes by the end of June.

The thought of relocating must be daunting to the residents, who now face the same impossible undertaking so many South Fork workers have experienced: finding an affordable place to live in a region where such housing is in short supply—if not non-existent. It’s the same conditions that compelled them to choose to live in illegal housing in the first place.Town officials have alternated between offering platitudes about making sure the residents don’t end up on the streets to shifting blame to the property owner—pointing out that it is he, not them, who is evicting the families. He, not them, was using the motel as housing, illegally. Both true.Ultimately, it is not the town’s responsibility to find new homes for the workers. But town officials might have been better prepared to find the families the help they need to relocate. This was a specific problem on a specific property, and the town found a workable solution. But the displacement of the residents living in the bed bug- and roach-infested motel—for lack of many other options—speaks loudly of a larger problem: the dearth of affordable workforce housing options on the East End.

While the “situation” at the Bel-Aire Cove Motel property may be solved once the sale goes through and it is redeveloped, the overall problem most likely will just be shifted. Those living at the motel now will either be forced to move west, adding to the already unbearable “trade parade,” or they will relocate to group homes or other illegal housing, adding to overused septics and polluting some other waterway.

The town has added a handful of affordable and workforce units to the housing stock in recent years, but nowhere near the number that is needed. Until it does, scenes like those playing out this month in Hampton Bays will just keep repeating. It solves one small symptom but doesn’t begin to treat the actual disease.