Can’t we keep our extra bedrooms?

Q. I read a Herald editorial about not being allowed to use my basement for extra bedrooms, and we already have bedrooms there from before we bought our house. How can my town tell me I can’t have bedrooms when everyone has them and we need the space? We pay enough taxes not to have to put up with this. Who makes these rules, and how do we change them? If I have to take out the rooms in my basement, I’m going to have to just sell and leave the problem for the next guy like it was left for me.

A. I read an article, in the early ’90s, titled “Will the Last Person Off Long Island Please Turn Out the Lights.” The writer, a newspaper editor, made suggestions about consolidating fire departments, schools, local governments, etc. Apparently nobody listened, since nothing changed. Logic did not prevail.

In your town, civic groups protested homes becoming too large. Your town reacted, reducing allowable height and area homes could expand to. By limiting height in the economic downturn, homeowners reacted, turning basements into usable bedrooms, saving money and taxes, since it costs much less to finish basements and the county does not tax finished basements anywhere near the assessment of second-floor additions. While this might make sense, especially because state codes allow basement rooms with safe escape methods, local governments reacted, issuing violation notices.

Clearly, many basements are not safe for habitation because, in a fire, there is no way to get out. People will die. There is hope that elected officials will realize the problems homeowners face and explore ways to monitor and accommodate safe solutions.

The other reason for disallowing basement bedrooms is the creation of multiple-family occupancies, as mentioned in the editorial, and that regardless of regulations preventing it, people, out of necessity, have opened their homes to unfortunate relatives and friends who are losing their own homes. This problem is very real and will not just go away.

There are methods, prescribed in the state building codes, for making basements safe, using large windows exiting into escape wells, installing hard-wired smoke detectors, separating heating equipment with flame-retardant materials and disallowing low ceilings. Current codes prescribe seven-foot ceilings.

Having two means of escape from each room, a possible central station smoke monitoring, and annual inspections of each permitted use could help ease this financial burden and complement the building height and area reductions by giving homeowners a way to cost-effectively not overbuild while meeting space needs. You, and so many others, need to speak up to your elected officials. Otherwise, the last person off Long Island will have to turn out the lights. Good luck.

© 2008 Monte Leeper
Readers are encouraged to send questions to yourhousedr@aol.com, with “Herald question” in the subject line, or to Herald Homes, 2 Endo Blvd., Garden City, NY 11530, Attn: Monte Leeper, architect.