In a continued effort to spur the construction of accessory dwelling units throughout East Hampton Town, the town board last week unanimously supported taking $1 million from the Community Housing Fund and chopping it into 10 separate $100,000 loans for applicants. Applications became available on the town’s website Monday and are open until Aug. 21.
The pilot program creates interest-free loans (no monthly payments). They are to be repaid to the town when the property sells and are secured by a lien in favor of the housing fund.
Residents who use the loan to build an attached A.D.U. must build a unit measuring at least 300 square feet and up to 1,200 square feet. Detached A.D.U.s max out at 600 square feet. The units can only be built on properties that are at least 15,000 square feet, roughly a third of an acre.
Currently, each of the five town hamlets has a cap of 40 A.D.U.s, but only East Hampton, with an existing 32, and Springs with 25, are even remotely close to the limit. In Montauk, nine A.D.U.s have been built, but only two each in Amagansett and Wainscott. At today’s limits, 131 more A.D.U.s could be built townwide.
If the loan program is successful, the board briefly discussed raising the number of A.D.U.s allowed per hamlet, perhaps allowing more in school districts that contain more building parcels.
“The big ones are East Hampton and Springs, that’s where the need and demand has been,” Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said.
If the town receives more than 10 applications for the loans, a public lottery will determine the order in which they are reviewed.
According to a town press release, units created through the program must be rented year round to eligible tenants at affordable rents. Eligible tenants may include current East Hampton residents, former East Hampton residents who have lived in town within the past five years, people who work within the town, and family members of the property owner or spouse.
Tenants must meet income eligibility requirements, though not the homeowners. “There’s no restrictions on the incomes of the owners,” Mark Morgan-Perez, the director of housing, said at last week’s meeting. “Tenant incomes would be restricted in the amount of $197,880 for households that are one or two people, and up to $230,860 for households of three to four people, which is basically 150 percent and 140 percent of [area median income].”
A public hearing was held on the matter on June 4 and received scant comment.
“A $100,000 loan is significant,” said Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte, who sponsored the legislation. “We don’t have unlimited C.H.F. funds. We want everyday, ordinary people to be able to do this and go through a process that makes sense. And I think a lot of effort went into making this program work that way. And, full disclosure, it’s not going to be perfect.”
