Village of Great Neck Estates officials are seeking to eliminate short-term rentals of village residences due to an increase in popularity of housing websites such Airbnb, which people use to exchange living accommodations for short periods of time.
The proposed law, which was discussed in a public hearing at Monday’s Board of Trustees meeting, would prohibit homeowners from renting their homes for less than 60 days.
“I don’t think anybody wants to see a house used by somebody on weekends,” Village of Great Neck Estates Mayor David Fox said. “We don’t want a party house. We don’t want to be cleaning up anybody else’s trash.”
Village officials said transient rentals would impact residents’ quality of life and “decrease the inventory” of available long-term rentals in the village.
“I think the potential abuses of our community far outweigh the advantages that the homeowner now enjoys,” Deputy Mayor William Warner said.
But while the board said they believed the proposed law would benefit the village, one resident said she found it “restrictive.”
“I think that what you are doing is taking away a substantial property right,” a Clover Drive resident said. “I’m a homeowner and I should have the ability to assign my house, to sell my house, to alienate my house in any way I want.”
Instead, she said, the village should impose a registration fee for homeowners interested in subletting their homes for short periods of time and impose inspection requirements regarding safety and fire management.
The board voted to adjourn the public hearing until May 9 to research what other municipalities have done about short-term home rentals.
“It’s a rationale, logical concern that I haven’t really thought of in the past because we hadn’t heard opposition to it and sounded like it made sense based on what we did know about it,” Trustee Howard Hershenhorn said.
Also at the meeting, the board unanimously passed its 2016-17 village budget, which calls for about $9.57 million in spending — a 1.85 percent increase from the current year’s budget.
The village plans to exceed the state-mandated .12 percent tax cap with a 1.53 percent increase in the tax levy for the fiscal year, which runs from June 1, 2016 to May 31, 2017.
Village trustees approved a bill that gives them the authority to override the tax cap.
While taxes increased, Fox said, some homeowners may not see any increase in their tax bill.
“There are some houses that will go up much more and some houses that will not go up at all or go up a hundredth of a percent,” he said. “That is because there is new construction, new evaluation, new assessment, they increased the size of their houses, they did certain work on the house that increased the assessed value of their houses, so their taxes may go up.”
The biggest increase in spending was for about $56,000 in employee medical, dental and optical benefits.
Also at the meeting, the board voted to again adjourn a public hearing on a proposal to demolish the First Playhouse Theater and replace it with an apartment complex.
Fox said he and the applicants met with the Nassau County Department of Public Works to determine how construction of the project could have less of a negative effect on traffic on Middle Neck Road.
“As it is, we seem to be making headway relative to the methodology that the group that owns that property, and are going to do this construction, will use in order to bring materials to the site, unload materials at the site and have the least impact on Middle Neck Road as is conceivably possible,” he said
Fox also said the applicants requested to adjourn until the May 9 board meeting, but he was unsure if they would be ready to continue the public hearing by then.
