Housing Authority Offers $25K per Year to District

The East Hampton Housing Authority, which is creating an affordable housing complex with 38 apartments on 4.6 acres at 531 Montauk Highway in Amagansett, has offered to make a $25,000 annual payment to the Amagansett School District and library district in lieu of taxes to help offset the costs of educating any additional students who might move to the district. 

While a housing authority is exempt from paying property taxes, Catherine Casey, the authority’s executive director, said at a recent town board meeting, the authority customarily makes a payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, to help offset any increased costs in a school district that may have to accommodate additional students who move in to the housing being created. 

Ms. Casey said that town assessors who reviewed the Amagansett property where the new housing units are to be built determined that, if privately owned, it would be assigned an assessed value that would result in a tax levy of $13,000 per year. 

The housing authority decided to offer almost twice that amount to the Amagansett School and library districts, she said, as the number of students living in the new housing that would go to the Amagansett School could be larger than if the property were privately owned and developed — based on the fact that many properties in the hamlet are second homes occupied only part of the year, and the new housing will be for year-round residents. 

The payments would increase by 2 percent a year. The town board accepted the proposal by resolution last week.

The housing authority purchased the property, with the backing of the town for its bond notes, for $4 million in 2016 from Putnam Bridge, a Connecticut developer. The housing project is undergoing town planning board review.