Southold Town is re-advertising to find a person to administer its fledgling Community Housing Fund program this week, as members of the Town Board seemed at odds with Town Supervisor Al Krupski on the best way to address the town’s deepening housing affordability crisis.
The Community Housing Fund (CHF) is a half-percent real estate transfer tax approved by voters in a 2022 referendum, giving four of the five East End towns a new revenue source that can be used to fund affordable housing.
Pictured Above: At a 2015 Habitat for Humanity wall-raising in Orient, just one of a smattering of housing opportunities created in Southold Town in the past decade.
Southold’s fund now has now raised over $2 million, and the town also has $1 million in reserve from the affordable housing buyout for the development of the 124-unit Harvest Pointe condominium complex in Cutchogue.
The town approved a Community Housing Plan to govern use of the fund in October of 2023, which prioritized increasing the stock of year-round housing, maintaining existing housing, helping first-time homebuyers with down payments and providing education and counseling services.
But the town has taken little action to implement the plan this year as it awaited the filling of a position to administer it.
The Town Board first agreed to advertise for the position in October of 2023, but it took time to find a civil service title that would accurately describe the role of the housing administrator, and the town was unable to find qualified applicants to fill the position when it was advertised earlier this fall.
The board voted unanimously at its regular meeting Nov. 19 to advertise again for the housing program administrator position — known in Civil Service parlance as a “Community Development Project Supervisor.” It’s a position that carries a salary range of $100,000 to $125,000 per year, based on experience.
“We want somebody that has housing experience, preferably in both the private and government sector,” said Town Councilwoman Jill Doherty, who serves as the Town Board’s liaison to the town’s Housing Advisory Commission, a group of community members with experience in housing that is required by state law to provide guidance on the use of CHF funds.
Ms. Doherty added that the town had previously received resumes from people who had worked in agencies that administered Section 8 housing vouchers, but this program requires someone with more in-depth experience in creating new housing opportunities.
As Southold has worked to find someone to administer its program, New York State has rolled out a pilot program, separate from the Community Housing Fund, called Plus One ADU, giving homeowners grants of up to $125,000 to build accessory apartments on their property.
Two million dollars have been allocated to the program in Southold Town, where it is administered by the Long Island Housing Partnership.
While several residents in Southold have been able to get grants since the program began in late 2023, some projects have run afoul of a caveat in the Southold Town Code.
That caveat requires that ADUs (accessory dwelling units) can only be approved in detached accessory structures if the structure has had a certificate of occupancy for at least three years. The rule exists to prevent people from building new structures solely for the purpose of providing living space. Prior to 2023, the code had required the structure have a Certificate of Occupancy for 10 years before it could be eligible to be an ADU.
“Our suggestion is to take out the requirement of a Certificate of Occupancy for three years,” Assistant Town Attorney Julie McGivney told the Town Board at its work session on Tuesday, Nov. 19. “A couple people have been turned down for the grant because of the code.”
Ms. McGivney said the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals has received 14 applications for Special Exception Use permits to allow them to build ADUs, 11 of which were granted. The process of applying to the Zoning Board takes several months and is an added cost for homeowners.
“They estimated about 15 people inquired and, because they didn’t have a CO in place, they didn’t move forward,” added Ms. McGivney, who said about 25 people had inquired the Building Department office about building an ADU in the past year-and-a-half but “had to walk away.”
As he has repeatedly since he took office in January, including in his State of the Town Address in July, Town Supervisor Al Krupski doubled down on his worry that ADUs “result in the doubling of density,” and said the town needs to look at how many ADUs it allows in each hamlet, and put guardrails in place to protect the neighbors.
“I don’t know if we ever looked at the density of these and how it would affect neighborhoods,” he said at the work session.
But Councilman Greg Doroski pushed back forcefully, and staff in the town’s Planning Department echoed his sentiment.
“I think we can all agree there are not too many accessory apartments within Southold Town,” said Mr. Doroski. “There is a shortage, right now, of apartments. Right now, by right, you are allowed to build massive homes on some of these lots. The density we’re concerned about is adding a one-to-two bedroom apartment for one to two people. I see it in my neighborhood — people are buying 2,000-square-foot homes, flattening them, and building 5,000-square-foot homes.”
He added that retired longtime residents often choose to sell their houses and leave the area because it is easier to cash out than to build an accessory apartment that could give them retirement income or give them space to allow their kids to stay in town and raise families of their own.
“They’re parachuting out, and the homes are becoming massive structures, and there’s no ability for people who want to age in place to live there,” he said. “This would allow the community to stay intact, with young people and older people.”
“What you’ve articulated is the taproot of why we went from 10 years to three years (with the Certificate of Occupancy requirement),” agreed Councilwoman Anne Smith. “We all saw it coming, we saw families leaving the schools.”
“There is such a critical need. Every month a family is contemplating where they’re going to live,” said Assistant Planning Director Mark Terry. “I don’t think fear of density makes sense.”
“This is a wonderful conversation, and it underscores that we really do need that housing person,” said Town Planner Mara Cerezo, who did the lion’s share of the work drafting the town’s Housing Plan.
“Right now, there is a house being built on a two-acre lot that has 11 bathrooms,” she said. “When we talk about density, I want us to really think about the limitations of that. How do we do this justly and fairly?”
While Mr. Doroski said he believed ADUs should only be in structures that already meet property setbacks, Ms. Doherty disagreed, pointing out that the square footage of these units, between 220 and 750 square feet, are unlikely to raise eyebrows, especially since the people renting them will need to either have incomes that make them eligible for affordable housing or be family members of the property owner.
“People are not going to build the Taj Mahal in their backyard and airBNB it,” she said. “And it makes no sense if people have to put a detached garage in the middle of their backyard.”
As the board continued to debate the removal of the three-year waiting period from the ADU code that Tuesday morning, a house fire raged in Mattituck, taking the life of a 26-year-old man who worked nights in a local restaurant, who was asleep in the attic and unable to escape.
Ms. Doherty mused on Thursday that things might have been different if the town hadn’t been slow-walking housing solutions.
“That poor guy that lost his life could have been in an apartment, instead of in an attic that didn’t have an escape route,” she said.
The Town Board is expected to discuss changing the language regarding ADUs in accessory structures at a Code Committee meeting to be held Dec. 12 at Town Hall at 2 p.m.
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