By JOSEPH KELLARD
While some are calling the proposal an unfair measure against legal two-family homeowners, Village of Island Park officials insist the law would pertain to all homeowners.
Mayor Jim Ruzicka and the trustees said the village board¹s proposed law, Local Law 4 of 2007, would give them greater power to root out and prevent illegal rentals in Island Park, something the mayor said is becoming an ever increasing problem.
Under the law, homeowners would be required to file an application with the village to allow a building inspector into their dwellings to ensure they comply with local housing codes pertaining to issues such as zoning and a sufficient number of bedrooms and bathrooms. The proposed fee for the permit is $250 every two years for an owner of an occupied dwelling; and $1,000 for absentee landlords.
Ruzicka said the village has found that there are multiple families living in single and two-family homes. ³Right now it¹s very difficult to get into these places that we suspect [are] illegal rentals and they hold us up legally,² Ruzicka said. ³This law would give us more of a tool to do inspections, to make sure that everybody is doing what¹s supposed to be legally done in the village.²
The board is holding a series of meetings with residents to discuss the new law. During the second meeting on Aug. 16, in which residents packed the village hall, Joe Forzano, a Quebec Road resident and a village zoning board trustee, was one of many legal two-family homeowners questioning the law. They said that they prefer to see it revised because, they argue, it omits single-family homeowners, whom they say house the vast majority of illegal renters in the village.
³You are picking on the legal two-family homeowners,² Forzano told the board. ³Put a law in that every single home in Island Park is going to be inspected for conformance. The only people who are going to fight this are the people who are doing everything illegal.²
Other two-family homeowners believe the proposed law is unfair because they would then have to pay the permit fee when they are already in compliance.
³I pay $2,329 in taxes on that home, and I feel that in essence what you are going to do to me is raise my taxes another $500 a year because I¹m living in Barnum Isle,² said Ellen Ambroisa, who rents a home in the village. ³I don¹t think that¹s fair. You¹re trying to get rid of a blight and illegals, and I have nothing to do [with] that. I have a legal two-family house.²
Michael Scully, a realtor and owner of a two-family rental in the village, said, ³I think the feeling of most of the people I¹ve spoken to is that the masses are being penalized ... I think to go throughout the whole community for the few that you might even be aware of is unfair to everyone here ...Why should everyone here pay to rent their homes?²
Village Attorney Anthony Cornachio argues that the village cannot apply Local Law 4 to select people, and said the law basically subjects every dwelling, whether a one or two-family home, to a licensing bar.
³This law allows us to go after those illegal rentals, because they don¹t have a license,² Cornachio said. ³It¹s a lot easier to grab a hold of someone and ask if they are paying rent. Now if they¹re not licensed, we¹ve got the records. Right now, we can¹t look that up and necessarily know if they¹re renting.²
Some residents question how the new law will help find and punish the slumlords and absentee owners who are renting. Ruzicka said this is a problem, since many absentee landlords live as far away as New York City, Ohio or Florida and are difficult to reach.
Cornachio added that there are a handful of landlords in the village who are ³creating a lot of havoc² because of the type of people they are renting to.
³People like that now are going to have to go through a test,² he said. ³If, say, they¹re not taking care of their garbage, well then we¹re going to tell them that they are going to lose their licenses to rent rather than have a $25 or $50 fine imposed.²
Waterford Road resident Dana Feminella questioned whether the law violates any civil or constitutional rights that will prevent the village from inspecting homes. ³I just want to make sure that, at the end of the day, we can actually enforce it legally on a federal level, and not just the local level,² she said.
³We want to make sure that the health, safety and welfare of the people in the house and the community is adequately provided for, therefore we will inspect, and you must pass inspection before you can get the license,² Cornachio argued. ³That is something the government can do, and it¹s not a violation [of anyone¹s rights].²
Feminella is among those who support the law if it will correct even a portion of the problem with illegal rentals in the village. Laura Hassit, a Newport Road resident, said, ³If this law can cut back 10 percent on illegal rentals, I¹ll gladly pay whatever the fee [is] at the end of the day.²
While the money collected for the fee will go into the village¹s general fund, some residents had other suggestions about how to budget the funds. Barbara Bolton of Waterford Road suggested that the money instead go into a specific fund for this particular issue. ³I feel that if it gets put into a general fund, it won¹t get used for what we¹re trying to accomplish here,² she said.
Ruzicka said that this is something the board will consider. And throughout the Aug. 16 meeting, both he and Deputy Mayor Stephen D¹Esposito reiterated that parts of the proposed law can be changed or modified, including the cost of the fee and some of the obligations required to obtain the permit, which is the board¹s purpose of holding the meetings with the community.
When the conversation turned to how the village intends to enforce the new law, Ruzicka said it can be accomplished through strict code enforcement and residents informing the village about multiple people living in their neighboring homes.
Residents said they have noticed that as many as 15 people live in some one-family homes. In some cases, not only the homeowners¹ sisters or brothers live with them, but also their uncles, aunts and cousins, and some are converting their garages into living quarters.
³You¹re not going to get any of them, if you¹re waiting for someone to turn them in,² Forzano told the mayor. ³And then you have to go through all these legal procedures ‹ we have to get an investigation, a court order. Put it down as one law. Get the whole village.²
³If you have a law that requires you to have a license or permit to rent, it¹s a lot easier to establish that someone other than the owner is living there not related to them,² Cornachio said. ³And sometimes you can get the tenant to at least admit it, based on the fact that they needed a permit. It¹s a simple violation to prove.²
As far as code enforcement under the new law, many residents said that little or nothing has been done in that area for years. ³If you can¹t take care of what¹s happening now with the code enforcers, how will this address that?² Forzano asked.
Ruzicka said this is another area that the board must iron out before voting on the new law, saying that the village will have to beef up its code enforcement, with the option of either hiring code enforcers through a private firm, as it does now, or through civil service.
Feminella suggested that the board consider assembling an arbitrary group of people from the village charged with choosing those who will take care of code enforcement. ³I think people deserve to know that, whoever is enforcing these laws, that they do it without any kind of attachment to the people they might be inspecting,² she said.
The village board will hold its next meeting at 8 p.m. on Sept. 20.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
