Party Houses Targeted By The Code Police
Quieter group rentals fly under the radar
(5/8/2008) The Craigslist ads come with YouTube videos of houses in Bridgehampton North and Sag Harbor North with plenty of pictures of girls named Staci and guys named Barry drinking Coronas and frolicking in the hot tub and pool.
“Amazing hampton [sic] share. . . . We have two huge estates next to each other. Many bedrooms have TVs and mini fridges in every room! Our nights are spent pre-partying with cocktails at the house before we hit the hottest A-list Hampton’s [sic] clubs.”
If to the neighbors this sounds like a definite migraine, it may sound like paradise to the “awesome professionals in their 20s to mid 30s” the ad is geared toward.
But while East Hampton and Southampton Towns have become more diligent and systematic in cracking down on known problem properties, they have in recent years been inclined to turn a blind eye to shares in which the tenants otherwise behave themselves. Since “groupers” first raised hackles in the 1970s — a symbol of Sodom and Gomorrah come to the South Fork — priorities and strategies have shifted when it comes to enforcing the rental laws.
Preventive measures are taken, and a certain amount of sleuthing does go on, of course.
For instance, in East Hampton and Southampton, where the occupancy of any given house is limited to no more than four unrelated adults, those in charge of code enforcement said Internet ads such as the one quoted above actually help the department sniff out potential violations.
Dominic Schirrippa, the head of ordinance enforcement for East Hampton Town, said Internet and classified ads are often a tip-off as to which houses might require a watchful eye once Memorial Day comes around.
Cheryl Kraft, Southampton’s fire marshal, said her town’s code enforcement team began contacting people who post Internet ads for group houses a few years ago to let them know the rules.
This year, Southampton’s laws have changed slightly to require a permit for rental housing. But “we’re not getting many applications, 117 including year-round,” Ms. Kraft said. The town keeps track of rental signs, and holds a master list of all the rental properties it is aware of. “Having it up for rent doesn’t mean they’re in violation, but we can give them information on the town’s codes.”
Southampton also tracks trouble spots: “There are properties with repeat problems,” said Ms. Kraft. “We have a list of the top 100. We’re working off last year’s list, and we’ll start visiting as the season starts.”
Concerned citizens will sometimes send Ms. Kraft’s department notices of upcoming parties held in Manhattan to attract groupers to one house or another. Attendees can apply for shares or meet those who have already signed up. Code enforcement officers will notify the hosts, and keep the contact information. “We try to be creative as we can to address the problems beforehand,” she said.
Still, share houses in Southampton and East Hampton are not terribly likely to come under official scrutiny unless a complaint comes in.
When no complaint has been filed — and there is no legal reason for an officer to visit the property — making a case against a share house is very difficult. Without a warrant, the occupants’ permission is needed to enter a suspect house, and a warrant can be extremely hard to get. Many newer houses in the area sometimes referred to as “Bridgehampton North” or “Water Mill North” are on flag lots, and thus hard to see from the street.
If groupers do not make a nuisance of themselves, in other words, they can usually fly under the radar.
One person who was listed as a contact in an ad for a house in Southampton, for instance, said in a telephone interview that the town had not found it necessary to come to the house she helps sponsor. “It hasn’t been an issue for us,” she said. “We follow the rules.” (In a follow-up e-mail, she declined to comment further and said she did not want to participate in the story. Because share houses and multiple short-term rentals within a season are by their nature illegal in both towns, those who use properties they own or rent for those purposes were not eager to speak on the record.)
The system today is, therefore, primarily complaint-driven.
Last year East Hampton’s code enforcement department added a “midnight shift” officer, who comes in at 8 p.m. and finishes at 8 a.m., spending the night responding to noise complaints and other disturbances. Southampton’s code enforcement officers have also expanded their shifts to nights and weekends, so someone is on call at the witching hour.
Noise violations are code enforcement’s ace in the hole. “It’s hard to prove it’s a share house,” Mr. Schirrippa said of the typical case, “so we get them on other things.” The complaint call usually comes from neighbors, although he could recall one instance in which a share partner became dissatisfied and helped the town investigators. “Most of the time, though, it’s friends who will not give up on each other.”
Last year in East Hampton, Mr. Schirrippa said, there were three group houses in Amagansett and one in Northwest whose owners ended up in court after the houses were a thorn in his department’s side all season.
While it is often young professionals coming out from New York City who create noise and parking problems for the neighbors, he said one particularly overcrowded house of summer workers from Ireland caused trouble last year. “It was a group of students who work in restaurants and bars. They had 12 people in a normal-size house. They had 12 different bath towels hanging on the porch. They would come home at 2 to 3 in the morning from work and go in the pool.”
East Hampton has also had its run-ins with corporate entities such as Stereo, a bar in Manhattan that rented a house for parties two summers ago. And then there are the “prom houses”: Last year, one on Merchant’s Path was the destination for a busload of 40 high school students who stayed over for two nights in late June.
Sometimes, however, it isn’t the number of occupants but the length of the rental that is the concern. East Hampton code describes as “an illegal motel” any single-family house that is rented for not more than two weeks “on three or more occasions during a six-month period.”
Michael Kaufman and his family have 11 houses throughout East Hampton Town and Village that are marketed as short-term vacation homes. (The family also operates a registered bed and breakfast under the name East Hampton Village Bed and Breakfast.) While several publications have tried to promote the short-term aspect of his property rentals, Mr. Kaufman said his rentals are typically two weeks and longer. He said he is aware of the town’s rental rules and abides by them.
“On the rare occasion, we’ll take rentals for less time, but it’s mostly families renting for a half-month to a month,” Mr. Kaufman said. Some properties are rented for half and full seasons, and two of his houses are currently rented year-round.
Julia Prince, an East Hampton town board member and a former ordinance enforcement officer, recalled that following up on complaints was time consuming. “You can’t just go to a house and decide it’s overcrowded and illegal. You need to do research. . . . Investigations take time.”
Most people Ms. Prince met during her tenure as an officer were cooperative and willing to address violations once they understood what needed to be changed to make the rental legal, she said. But when “subjects don’t want to comply and you don’t have eviction powers, you have to be relentless. You have to keep going back.”
In extreme cases, the town will take action such as obtaining a temporary restraining order. “But if it’s a marginal problem, we won’t go to extremes,” Ms. Kraft said. A restraining order requires the work of the building department, the police department, and the town attorney’s office. “It’s a drain on resources. . . . We do not go into any enforcement action lightly. If we’re doing that, we’re not doing other things.”
Ms. Kraft spoke of priorities. “There are the frequent fliers and those with one or two noise complaints on big holidays,” she said. The town does not usually pursue the small potatoes unless there is a health and safety issue involved. In one case, she recalled, there was a fire in a house in East Quogue and those on the scene “didn’t know who was missing. Their roommate may have ‘scored.’ ”
Ms. Kraft is surprised that people from Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens pay so much money and spend so much time battling traffic “to share quarters in a basement with people they don’t know.”
“There are just as many situations as parcels,” she said. “In 20 years you think you’ve seen everything, but it’s new every year.”