Islip board: Assemblywoman must shutter one rental

Three years after Assemb. Ginny Fields was cited for illegally renting out two Oakdale cottages, Islip's Zoning Board of Appeals has ruled that she can continue to rent one - but she must demolish or move the other.

Islip in 2007 issued notices to Fields and her husband, Walter Fields, for two one-story cottages on the lot of a larger house at 3 East Shore Rd. The cottages did not have rental permits and were not included in the house's certificate of occupancy, as required by town code.

Newsday reported a year ago that Fields (D-Oakdale) still had not submitted an application to the zoning board of appeals to bring the cottages into compliance.

She began the application process in March and completed it in December, town officials said.

At a zoning board hearing last month, she argued that both cottages qualified for legal nonconforming use, or "grandfathering." She testified that both had been occupied every summer since they were built in 1940.

But a man who in the 1940s and '50s lived next to the property testified that while one cottage had regular seasonal tenants, the other had no plumbing - just a garden hose running from next door - and was largely vacant until 1955.

In a written decision released Wednesday, the zoning board's chairman, Richard Scheyer, called that neighbor's testimony "extremely credible."

The board ruled that the cottage that was steadily occupied qualifies for a certificate of compliance, making it eligible for residential use. The other does not, the board found, because it had been vacant for more than a year and its structure was substantially altered in a renovation.

The cottage's tenant must vacate within 30 days, town attorney Alicia O'Connor said.

In a phone interview from Albany, Fields said she has not decided what to do with the cottage but may offer to donate it for historic preservation. "We've done everything we could to be in compliance. It's a bit unfortunate because . . . the records don't go back that far. I was unable to really show genuine proof" of continuous occupancy.

O'Connor said the town will extend the 30-day deadline if the owners "show good faith effort" to remove the cottage as quickly as possible. The ruling made note of several neighbors who attended last month's hearing to complain about the cottages. But town code does not allow quality-of-life issues to be considered in such a case, Scheyer wrote.