Cheap housing, but only for citizens
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longi ... 4953.story
Cheap housing, but only for citizens
BY BART JONES
Newsday Staff Writer
June 6, 2006
In an effort to encourage affordable housing, East Hampton Town is discussing a new program to streamline the process for creating low-rent accessory apartments - but only legal residents need apply.
The program, which the town board is expected to discuss publicly for the first time today, would allow homeowners to sidestep the normally laborious process of applying for a building permit to construct accessory units through the planning board and other town entities. Instead, it would be handled directly through the building inspector's office as an administrative matter, town officials said.
The idea behind the pilot program is to create at least 100 apartments townwide with monthly rents between $900 and $1,100 and stem the loss of middle-class residents leaving because of high rents, said Councilwoman Debra Foster, who is spearheading the effort.
But Foster said that if the proposal meets the approval of the town board, only people who are in the country legally would be eligible to apply as either landlords or tenants.
"My first priority, and I'm not going to back away from this, would be our year-round people that live and work here and are legally here," she said. "If you're here illegally, you're not first on my list right now."
Undocumented workers live in communities across Long Island and are not eligible for government programs. A county official who asked not to be identified said that, to his eye, the East Hampton proposal would be legal.
Some Latino activists said they were alarmed by language in a town memorandum on the proposed program stating that "homeowners and tenants must provide ID with photo such as driver's license and passport as to status of citizenship (green card and/or visa)."
Amado Ortiz, a local architect, said he was generally supportive of the program to create low-cost units, but said the language about legal residency might stoke anti-immigrant sentiment.
He said he met Sunday with town officials he would not name and they agreed to remove the language from the memorandum, which left him satisfied.
For her part, however, Foster said yesterday she will remove some of the language, but would stick to her guns on the key provision that only legal residents would be eligible.
She said undocumented immigrants living there could take advantage of other programs.