Rooming houses, containing a maximum of 16 beds and a minimum room size of 70 feet, with shared cooking and bathroom facilities (one bathroom per six occupants), are now legal in East Hampton Town, following a unanimous vote of the town board last Thursday to change the zoning code and create a new use for “accessory staff housing.”
A two-person room in a rooming house could be as small as 100 square feet.
The maximum rent for a rooming house room was set at 75 percent of the rent of a studio under the affordable housing unit code, currently $1,992 a month. So, a 70-square-foot room could rent for $1,494 a month.
A question to Jake Turner, the town attorney, to confirm those numbers was forwarded to Patrick Derenze, the town’s public information officer, who did not return comment in time for publication.
Those are the minimums and maximums. A built complex would likely fall somewhere in the middle.
Accessory staff housing will be an accessory use to the principal use of the land and will not be considered a new use. The minimum lot area for the use is one acre, and the maximum number of units will depend on sanitary flows calculated by the Suffolk County Department of Health Services.
The units are limited to employees working for at least 30 hours a week for no less than 90 days, and their families. Seasonal employees are therefore covered by the legislation.
If an employer who owns land wants to build rooming houses, apartments, or even single-family residences on it for employees, site plan approval from the planning board and a special permit will be required. Apartments can be no larger than 1,200 square feet, with a maximum of two bedrooms, while single-family residences can be up to 1,800 square feet, with up to three bedrooms.
A business that is leasing land may also build housing if it provides written acknowledgement and consent from the landowner. However, the maximum number of people who may reside in a development is capped at 16.
“To ensure that the housing is accessory to the principal business use, only the owner of the business for which the tenants are employees may apply for this special permit,” reads the legislation. Parking must be screened, and placed, when feasible, behind buildings.
The town board is currently limiting the number of special permits allowed for accessory staff housing to 25, with the potential for increases.
The idea of allowing employers to build their own housing on their own land has been less controversial than a code change proposed by Kirby Marcantonio and his lawyer, Christopher Kelley, which would have allowed a private developer to build condominiums that they would then sell to local businesses, who could then use the units for their employees.
The two separate pieces of legislation have been the subject of town board discussion and public hearings over the last months, and have perhaps been, at times, confused.
