Sag Harbor Village Board To Launch Affordable Housing Push

Sag Harbor Village officials will formally unveil a three-pronged strategy to attack the growing affordable housing crisis when the Village Board meets at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, February 8.

Trustees Ed Haye and Bob Plumb, who have been charged with overseeing the effort, said this week that they were still working on a draft of a local law that would create an affordable housing overlay district throughout the village.

Although it is currently possible for homeowners to obtain permits for accessory apartments in residential zones, and apartments are often a second-story feature of buildings in commercial zones, Haye said, “it is so difficult no one avails themselves of it. We have to provide appropriate incentives. The goal is to do more than just allow it to happen. The goal would be to truly support and incentivize it.”

The Village Board has been encouraged to tackle the housing issue because Sag Harbor residents, like those in other communities across the East End, have been rocked by spiraling housing costs in recent years that have made it almost impossible for many locals to remain here and for businesses to find employees.

“It even applies at this point to what you could call ‘unaffordable housing,’” Plumb said. “Even for a person with a good job, it’s still extremely expensive to live here.”

The two trustees said the village is also exploring ways to collaborate with neighboring municipalities as well as to establish a way to administer any affordable housing programs the village launches without imposing an additional burden on its existing staff and review boards.

Both East Hampton and Southampton towns already have created housing authorities to seek out opportunities to build affordable units and housing offices, which administer town programs, determine applicants’ eligibility, oversee waiting lists, and the like. Although Haye said “some preliminary discussions have already taken place,” he said it was too early to say whether the village would try to contract with one town or the other to manage its housing programs, although the hope is to not duplicate efforts.

“We don’t want to recreate the wheel,” Haye said. “We don’t want to create another bureaucracy.”

The mere suggestion that the village would announce a comprehensive approach to the housing crisis brought a crowd of supporters to a remotely broadcast Village Board meeting last month, with at least 10 speakers urging the board to take swift, decisive action.

Haye said public engagement was welcome. “We don’t pretend to have all the solutions worked out,” he said.

He added that it is important that opponents to any of the proposals aired also voice their opinions. “Oftentimes, the best work comes out of listening to and anticipating any problems and trying to figure how to come to a solution,” he said.

Plumb said it was good to see the enthusiasm, but that patience was needed. “This is complicated, and we are working on it,” he said. “We get the urgency, but we also understand the problem, and we have to be methodical about it.” He added that rather than one, all-encompassing measure, the strategy would likely involve a number of steps over the coming years.

One elephant in the room is how to entice developers to build affordable apartments instead of market-rate units.

“That’s one of the fundamental problems we are facing,” Plumb said. “What good does it do someone to be allowed to build a space that is not going to make them any money?”

Haye said the village would explore tax breaks and other amenities to make such projects more inviting, and Plumb added that some developers the pair had spoken to had assured them that it was possible to make a profit on affordable housing projects, provided the proper incentives were in place.

The trustees also acknowledged that Sag Harbor is not in position to undertake any large-scale projects within its boundaries. “There are not that many lots in the village and, second, we don’t own them,” Haye said. “If we got 10 units in Sag Harbor, that would be a positive because right now we have so few.”

Haye said another issue is how to make affordable apartments permanent. “This would not be a temporary thing,” he said. “This would run with the deed as a restrictive covenant.

With New York State having recently passed a law that will allow East End towns to collect a half percent real estate transfer tax, similar to the Community Preservation Fund, but earmarked for affordable housing, both trustees said that money would obviously help kick-start programs, but they agreed that some elements of Sag Harbor’s plan may be best served by letting the voters decide.

“I have a feeling that some of these things may be best adjudicated at that level,” said Plumb. “If there is going to be broad zoning changes, I’m not sure it isn’t in everybody’s interest to have a referendum.”

And Haye said it was important to keep in mind that solutions to the problem would likely be regional in scope.

“Our authority as village trustees is limited,” he said, “but our ability to influence positive change isn’t limited to the village boundaries. And this community is not limited by the village boundaries.”