By:Nick Buglione
Standing before that same house, at 2389 Post St., last week, Harvey Levinson, chairman of the Nassau County Board of Assessors, proposed a new initiative he hopes will curb illegal rentals. Levinson wants to hit landlords who rent homes to multiple families where it hurts -- the pocketbook -- by reclassifying the dwellings from Class 1 residential properties to Class 4 commercial properties.
The change would mean thousands of dollars more in taxes to the owners, and hopefully coax them out of the illegal rental business, Levinson said.
"It's unlikely people would run rooming houses and boarding houses if they knew the government was watching them," said Levinson, who was joined by civic leaders from Elmont, Franklin Square, West Hempstead and Merrick.
A scarcity of affordable housing has caused a spike in illegal rentals over the past decade. Reports indicated that at the end of last year, 100,000 illegal apartments existed in Nassau and Suffolk counties, according to Levinson.
Aside from the sanitation, parking and quality-of-life issues they pose, illegal rentals place an unfair tax burden on law-abiding homeowners, civic leaders say. "What they do is create a burden on the entire town, because they require additional services," said Rosalie Norton, incoming president of the West Hempstead Civic Association. "It burdens the school district, social services, and even puts a burden on health care."
It's common to see absentee landlords, from East Meadow to Elmont, rent homes to as many as four families, while paying taxes as though only one family lives there. If those families send children to local schools, the community as a whole essentially foots the bill to educate them.
"When this house isn't paying its fair share, it throws us off," Norton said. "They're not being taxed fairly."
The East Meadow home where Pe-a was murdered, for instance, was being rented out to three people living in the basement and two upstairs, while the superintendent and his family lived on the first floor. The owner, however, was paying only $5,700 in taxes per year.
Reclassifying that house as a commercial property would increase its tax obligation to $21,700, Levinson said.
Potential violators would be judged based on testimony and factors commonly indicating illegal apartments, Levinson said. In most instances, there are telltale signs that give the presence of illegal apartments away, he explained, such as multiple entrances, mailboxes and doorbells.
Under Levinson's proposal, once a violator received notification that his property classification would be changed to commercial, he would have the opportunity to challenge the findings and request an inspection to determine the allegation's validity.
In order for his initiative to succeed, Levinson needs the cooperation of the Hempstead Town Building Department, the lead agency that smokes out illegal rentals, and incorporated village officials to identify potential violators.
While the town has heard little about Levinson's idea, it seems willing to keep an open mind. "We have not seen a copy of the plan," said Susie Trenkle, a town spokeswoman. "We are concerned about illegal occupancy, and we are always anxious to work with other levels of government, but we need to see the plan before we can comment on it specifically."
Bob Young, co-founder of the Committee Against Illegal Rentals in Merrick, charged that the town hasn't done enough to fight illegal rentals, and applauded the new measure. "It took the Town of Hempstead I don't know how long to respond to our list of complaints" on illegal rentals, Young said. "Nothing has changed."
Still, Levinson's initiative only treats the symptom of a much larger problem: The lack of affordable housing on Long Island. "We have to create an atmosphere and zoning laws that will create affordable housing," Levinson said, emphasizing that only then will illegal rentals be eradicated.
