Register Rentals For The Community’s Sake
As the South Fork clears out after what was, by almost all accounts, an unpleasant summer, work continues in East Hampton Town Hall on a proposal for a rental registry. Modeled on those in other towns, notably Southampton, the draft-in-process is expected to set up a procedure by which landlords would have to sign up with the town before offering anyplace for rent.
When the registry was first discussed in East Hampton last year it was met with loud opposition. Landlords told the town board that the rules would be a burden and an invasion of privacy. Given the piles of money that can be made by those willing to break the law — and they are many, judging from the thousands of online listings for law-breaking multiple or short-term housing — it is safe to bet that the protests were motivated at least in part by a fear that the lucrative party might come slamming to an end if a registry were in place.
That was then. Now, after the unbearably crowded summer of 2015, it appears that the town board may be willing to revisit the issue. It should.
Just as the new online marketplace has disrupted publishing, dating, taxi service, and social relations, so too has it upended real estate. Brokers who deal in rentals told stories this year of a sea change in which traditional month or summerlong leases were decreasing as direct-by-owner deals appeared on the rise.
There also was a frenetic feeling in the air this summer as short-term tenants raced from one place to the next in an effort to get everything in before their weekend was up. It used to be that the bar to entry, a multi-thousand-dollar lease, was fairly high; now anybody with a couple of hundred bucks and a gas card can get a taste of Hamptons life for a few days, even in July and August. The web has aided group rentals as well, with last-minute vacancies advertised on Craigslist, for example, in defiance of local rules on fractional or share arrangements.
Opening the gates to a broader demographic may be desirable, but not when doing so ends up with a town filled beyond reasonable capacity. It is probably no accident that harmful algae blooms appeared in some water bodies for the first verified times this summer, fueled in part by all the wastewater flowing into groundwater. Services were stretched thin. A sense of frustration swelled.
By itself, registering landlords will not turn the tide and take us back to a quiet paradise. However, it and other deliberate steps could go a long way toward making summer bearable. The board should not be intimidated by the howls of anyone who profits at the community’s expense, enabled by an online marketplace that cares not for its effect on East Hampton or anyplace else for that matter.