What's with all the Sketchy people on LI? (Hempstead, Buffalo: spring break, houses)

[thebobs]

I graduated from Pilgrim State years ago and I have yet to see anyone abnormal on Long Island.

[TMing]

Originally Posted by BigMike50

I feel its LI in general, like I stated before I moved out of Baldwin almost 6 months ago. It's becoming like Brooklyn or Queens fast and in Baldwin even faster. While the older folks were moving out and the smarter younger ones also the changes on my block were dramatic. I love when poster say you don't like it because it's getting darker, not true. The two families that moved across the street are from Santa Domingo and Puerto Rico(very light skinned lol). It started out nicely but after 6 months one had 6 tenants and the other 4. And this in 3/4 bedrooms and 1 1/2 to 2 bath homes. With the added people comes the traffic and parking and garbage. One of the tenants walked around talking to himself all day, I guess kind of expected when your paying 60 a week and sharing a room with three others. The real kicker was the guy 3 a few doors down that was trying to sell for almost 2 years and I guess (hope ) just out of frustration he tells me one day................... I wonder if we are zone or maybe we are too close to Grand Ave to sell / rent my home to the state and let them turn it into a mentally ill or halfway home. WTF! I'm so happy to be out of there and in a much better place

I know some are going to post, why don't/ didn't you call up on them about the illegal apartments. It would have taken months if not years to straighten out that. When I went to my neighbors, they were like "you do what you have to to survive in this economy" so I permanently corrected the situation.

I have to agree with you BigMike. The island is becoming like the city, crowded. Thirty more years til I buy a retirement home in NC. Maybe I'll buy one now and rent it out. j/k..LOL...

[BigMike50]

Legalizing In-Home Apartments
By VALERIE COTSALAS

ONE of the biggest obstacles to creating affordable housing across Long Island has been residents’ aversion to the imposing size of concentrated dwellings like multistory apartment buildings and attached-home communities.

Last month, the town of Riverhead found a way to increase the number of affordable homes while avoiding the size issue altogether. Its board passed a law that legalizes the creation of apartments in single-family homes, so long as they conform to local building codes.

The law allows the apartments within a house, or in a detached garage, and applications must be approved by a review board. The homeowner must live either in the main part of the house or in the apartment.

Beyond addressing the lack of cheaper housing, the accessory apartments, as these converted properties are called, are intended to help elderly and low-income homeowners meet their monthly costs, said Phil Cardinale, the town supervisor. As an afterthought, he added, the board agreed to waive fines for homeowners who have illegal apartments in their homes, as long as they bring the units up to code.

The need for the apartments is acute. Only 18.6 percent of the housing stock in Suffolk and 18.1 percent in Nassau are rental apartments, according to a report issued by Pearl M. Kamer, chief economist for the Long Island Association, a business and civic organization. That is about half of the 36 percent in Westchester County and lower than other similar counties in the metropolitan area, according to the report.

But laws like the one in Riverhead, which have also been enacted in Babylon and Huntington farther west, fall short of providing incentives to homeowners to create apartments in their homes, said Peter Elkowitz, persident of the Long Island Housing Partnership, a nonprofit housing organization. Aside from the cost of building an apartment to code, property tax assessments often increase when a rental apartment is added.

“In other parts of the world,” Mr. Elkowitz said, “they encourage people with a tax benefit if they bring their apartments up to code. I haven’t heard of one anywhere in the U.S.; in order to keep an elderly parent living in the home in New York, you are usually penalized for it because it increases taxes on that accessory apartment.”

Rental income could also make some elderly residents ineligible for programs that grant them property tax abatements if their incomes are below a set threshold, according to Laverne Tennenberg, the chairwoman of the Riverhead board of assessors.

Related issues yet to be determined in Riverhead include how much garbage collection fees for homes with accessory apartments will increase the property tax bill, Ms. Tennenberg said.

Across the Island, as in Riverhead, many low-income communities have met the need for affordable housing with illegal apartments in single-family homes. Some convert a basement into an apartment, even though it has no outside exit; others build partitions in the house.

One reason that such apartments haven’t been legalized in more communities is local residents’ opposition to increasing numbers of illegal immigrants.

The immigrants, mainly Hispanic laborers performing low-paying jobs shunned by local residents, have intensified demand for inexpensive rentals, said Lee E. Koppelman, director of the Center for Regional Policy Studies at Stony Brook University. (Mr. Koppelman spent 40 years as director of the Long Island Planning Board.)

Some property owners have capitalized on the demand, renting out single-family homes to 20 or more people. This means workers “are just basically renting mattress space on the floor,” Mr. Koppelman said. Opposing rental apartments, he added, “is kind of code for, ‘If we have renters, we might have those people in the neighborhood,’ ” meaning illegal immigrants and minorities.

In March, a fire above an auto repair shop in a commercial zone of the village of Hempstead displaced three families living in illegal apartments on the upper floors. At another building fire in the village a week earlier, firefighters found one-bedroom apartments crowded with several immigrant families, said Wayne J. Hall, the village mayor.

The village passed a law in August cracking down on illegal apartments and has issued 150 summonses so far to homeowners whose homes display evidence of illegal apartments, including multiple utility boxes and several satellite dishes on the roof, Mr. Hall said.

Harvey B. Levinson, the Nassau County assessor, called the phenomenon “an enormous problem in communities where the home prices are at the low end of the spectrum, like Elmont, West Hempstead, Levittown, Hicksville and the village of Hempstead.” Short of cracking down on the owners of these properties, he added, there is not much that local government can do.

He also asserted that even if many towns were to adopt laws like the one in Riverhead, with a provision for illegal apartments to be brought up to code without a fine, there was little hope that people would apply to do so. That is because most illegal apartments are in basements, he pointed out, explaining that “you usually can’t make them legal” because they have no separate exit in case of fire.

If a makeshift apartment is convertible, the cost of bringing it up to code can also be an obstacle. “There really isn’t enough incentive if someone is doing it illegally at the present time,” said Mr. Koppelman.

There has been a general failure in Long Island towns to shut down illegal apartments, he added.
“If they do enforce the law and put people on the sidewalk, they also have to be prepared to provide substitute housing.”

But given the potential pitfalls, it is uncertain just how many people will take advantage of the new law in Riverhead.

[Port North]

Originally Posted by Johninwestbury

I think it'll be alot sooner than that. If I were to leave the U.S. I'd go to Canada.

I love Canada, Toronto is everything a city should be. I just love the considerate, orderly culture there and their strange sense of humor. They just seem to have more class and better manners there and a stronger middle class culture there(Less extemes in wealth and poverty).
It is also very diverse without being trashy, that is because they only let in people with college degrees or those with specialized skills. They are not creating a permenant hispanic underclass like in the U.S. Their service workers seem more upwardly mobile than over here.

Good beer, donuts and hockey to boot.

[I_Love_LI_but]

This kind of sketchy is in Cali, where so many people can't sell their homes that they are renting them indiscriminately to people who are bringing inner city nonsense to suburbia and ruining their neighborhoods in the process:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/us...gewanted=print

If LI got like this I would be gone. Why bother staying here and paying the high taxes?

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Jrprofess

I do not see the same in my area (Smithtown)

The reason is Smithtown is very strict about single family houses being used as single family houses. I remember awhile back a young woman started a thread on this forum complaining about how she and 2 other professional singles were renting a 4BR/2BA home in Smithtown and the authorities made them move out because they were not part of a single family unit. The house was not overcrowded in the least, but the authorities would not put up with it.

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Crookhaven

What no summers in Valley Stream?
I wish you would come out here.


I was referrring more to drifters, mentally ill, addicts etc roaming LIs streets.


All kidding aside, Id really really love to go to Goa.

Crooks

Actually I have relatives visiting from out of state and they went to Rocky Point earlier in the week to look around. (My grandparents had 2 summer homes in RP back when it was mostly a seasonal town.) One of the homes my grandparents built new in the late 60s/early 70s and my relatives drove by to see it and they said that whoever lives in it now had added on and tried to "McMansion" it a bit and it looks weird to them like this as it is not the way they remember it.

I have not been to Goa yet, but have been to a smaller beach town north of it on the Arabian Sea that is not as well known and not as touristy.

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by sdeshpan

@I_Love_LI_But: India is beautiful, but can also get to your nerves when it comes to a lot of things...not to forget it is a "developing" country. Have you been there before?

Yes, I have been there and spent my time in Mumbai (aka Bombay) and Pune in Maharashtra. The next time I go I am going to Mumbai and will also visit Rajasthan where I want to go to the tiger preserve and see the haunted city/ruins of Bhangarh during the day (nobody is allowed to go there after dark!).

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by I_Love_LI_but

Actually I have relatives visiting from out of state and they went to Rocky Point earlier in the week to look around. (My grandparents had 2 summer homes in RP back when it was mostly a seasonal town.) One of the homes my grandparents built new in the late 60s/early 70s and my relatives drove by to see it and they said that whoever lives in it now had added on and tried to "McMansion" it a bit and it looks weird to them like this as it is not the way they remember it.

I have not been to Goa yet, but have been to a smaller beach town north of it on the Arabian Sea that is not as well known and not as touristy.

Like I said, RP lost many of the cute bunglaows to the McMansion mindset.
Its definitely changed since the 70s but it still has its earthy charm.

Ive heard Goa is beatiful and a lot of fun,great club/music scene, Ive always wanted to go check it out.

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Port North

I love Canada, Toronto is everything a city should be. I just love the considerate, orderly culture there and their strange sense of humor. They just seem to have more class and better manners there and a stronger middle class culture there(Less extemes in wealth and poverty).
It is also very diverse without being trashy, that is because they only let in people with college degrees or those with specialized skills. They are not creating a permenant hispanic underclass like in the U.S. Their service workers seem more upwardly mobile than over here.

Good beer, donuts and hockey to boot.

I have not been to Canada, but I have a friend with relatives in Montreal and perhaps we will take a trip there soon. She really likes Montreal. How cold does it get there and how long does the winter/snows last? That would be my concern about Canada. Otherwise it sounds like a nice place. I have also heard it called "USA Lite," although since I've never been there I can't say if that is good or bad.