An attempt to cut down on Airbnbs and short-term rental properties in the Village of Lake Success will have to wait after the village’s Board of Trustees decided to table a potential bill that would have required landlords of transient properties to obtain proper rental permits.
A bill was proposed at the board’s meeting Monday, but there was concern that the measure was not doing enough to address the issue.
“I happen to be personally going through this process with the Town of Southampton,” said Board of Trustees member Larry Farkas. “So I’ve been reading the law… and they have certain provisions that are absent from our proposal.”
Of the provisions missing from Lake Success’ proposed bill are a proper procedure to renew a rental permit, how often a rental permit should be applied for and ensuring that landlords keep their properties up to code.
In the Town of Southampton, a rental permit can be renewed every two years and the property must be kept up to code upon renewal, but the town does not have to be the one conducting the inspection, a method that protects the town from exposure.
“The Town of Southampton has an alternative, where they can hire an architect or engineer who can self-certify, which I also liked,” said Farkas. “That would take away the exposure from the village.”
While the board plans on modeling its proposal after the law in place further east, not all of its provisions will be exactly the same as Southampton’s.
“I actually made some extra changes,” Farkas said. “Like the application shall contain consent from the property owner that the code enforcement officer can enter the property, which helps with the exposure. I don’t think that’s something that’s in the Southampton law.”
After tabling the bill at the latest trustees meeting, the board is expected to review the additions being made to the proposal before potentially making its decision at the next meeting.
“So here’s where we stand,” Mayor Adam Hoffman said. “We have the Southampton code we can try to implement into ours. I think it solves the problem about Airbnb. I’m not sure if we went overboard on long-term rentals… but at least we know people renting the house will get a look at the house.”
The next Board of Trustees meeting is expected to be held Aug. 13 as part of its usual schedule of meeting on the second Monday of each month.
