Conversation Over Raising ADU Caps in East Hampton Starts as Changes Remain in the Pipeline

A string of changes to loosen restrictions on accessory dwelling units will go back to a public hearing after the East Hampton Town Board heard comments from the public, which prompted revisions to the town code.

The second public hearing over accessory dwelling units, or small apartment-like structures located on a lot with a larger single-family house, will see a revised code that corrects a handful of typos and makes some moderate changes to the draft legislation.

East Hampton Town officials have pegged ADUs as a key tool in addressing the affordable housing crisis and as part of a broader strategy in getting all hands, including the private sector, on housing.

And, as such, town officials have talked about issuing loans from the Community Housing Fund for ADU construction and murmurs have begun over raising the 40-unit-per-hamlet cap on ADUs somewhere down the line, assuming the changes succeed and the hamlets wind up pushing the cap, which they are not currently.

“If we start to get close to that cap, that we’re hitting it, then ADUs are working as a method to address the housing need,” Councilman Tom Flight said at a work session on Tuesday. “I think that’s the time to have that conversation.”

Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez chimed in to say that the cap should be weighted based on hamlet population or the number of residential lots in each community.

Over the summer, the Town Board discussed six changes to its ADU code. The intent was to loosen the existing laws as a way of spurring on construction: As ADUs popped up, so, too, would the town’s stock of affordable housing. Flight, the liaison to the ADU committee, took the lead on the changes.

At the July meeting, the Town Board agreed on three of the changes: Allowing second-homeowners to build ADUs, requiring the tenant to be someone who lives or works in East Hampton Town and making it clear that the tenant should not have other housing.

Before the public hearing, the Town Board reached consensus on two other changes: Attached ADUs would be allowed on lots as small as 15,000 square feet and five vehicles would be allowed on a lot with an ADU.

But after hearing public comments, the Town Board will add a provision that allows both attached and detached ADUs on lots as small as 15,000 square feet.

A public hearing drew fairly substantial — but mixed — feedback, with the main source of disagreement stemming from the provision that would allow second-homeowners to build ADUs and rent them out as affordable housing.

David Buda, a Springs resident who prefaced his comments by saying he is a supporter of more affordable housing, advocated for a tie between the presence of the property owner and the rental of an ADU. This would mean requiring that the property be the owner’s primary house.

“I track every single sale of property in the town, and we are having more and more and more properties purchased by limited liability companies, corporations, all sorts of non-corporeal entities,” he said.

So, he called for town officials to look for places to build more affordable apartment complexes and consider establishing areas for two-family housing.

“An owner that builds an ADU could be an LLC or a corporation, and this compounds and frustrates any method of protecting single-family character in our single-family residential zones,” he said. “Owners of properties with ADUs should be residents of the town — i.e. it should be their primary residence — and eliminating that requirement is going to create an undesirable condition and undesirable influence and a total disregard of our existing single-family zoning laws and rules.”

Though she advocated for the bulk of the legislation, Jaine Mehring, who spoke as a private citizen, said she agreed with many of Buda’s thoughts.

“I just think it’s rife with potential problems,” she said. “Look at all the things we’re dealing with, the LLCs, the short-term rental platforms — I just think that needs more crafting.”

She expanded on her thoughts at the work session on Tuesday, suggesting that the Town Board tweak the language to better ensure the law is proofed from loopholes and abuses.

“You can sort of think about some of these unintended consequences,” she said. “You have, not even a second-home owner, letting their family, their young person, live there, but they’re not working in the town, they’re not creating anything. So it’s not really an ADU anymore. It becomes a guest house, or sort of a high-end crash pad.”

Among the supporters at the public hearing was Bryony Freij, an East Hampton resident, who addressed the concerns about second-homeowners being permitted to rent out affordable ADUs.

A large portion of the housing stock is owned by second-homeowners who rent out their houses anyway, Freij said, so why tell those people they can rent out their principal home but not their ADU?

“Our town is in such dire crisis, we need every single eligible lot and person who owns that lot to build an ADU and make one more house for somebody who deserves to live and work in East Hampton,” she said.