A good bill for cheaper housing

The shameful scarcity of housing that working class residents can afford is a bane for all of Long Island. But it comes into focus most sharply on the East End, where those who supply the labor that helps make the area a magnet for tourists and the affluent simply cannot afford to live there.

The list of the increasingly excluded is long: teachers, firefighters, restaurant and hospitality employees, landscapers, retail workers, and many others. When they are forced to live off the East End, traffic gets worse since they must take to the roads to get to their jobs. Some end up in crowded, substandard, illegal housing. Some simply leave. And employers and volunteer emergency services find it ever harder to locate, hire and retain workers.

All of those problems were exacerbated by the pandemic. People fleeing New York City, in particular, drove housing prices to astronomical heights and already scarce supplies dwindled, further squeezing middle- and working-class residents.

Fortunately, legislation that could ease this crisis is sitting on Gov. Kathy Hochul's desk. Sponsored by Assemb. Fred Thiele (I-Sag Harbor) and State Sen. Anthony Palumbo (R-New Suffolk), the bill is modeled on the wildly successful Community Preservation Fund for protecting open space, also co-authored by Thiele.

It would let each of the five East End towns create a community housing fund fueled by an added 0.5% increase in the existing 2% real estate transfer tax. The towns could use the money to jump-start construction of affordable housing including critical rentals, offer zero-interest loans to first-time homebuyers, or other incentives. And this is not a tax that would be jammed down residents' throats: The bill requires that the five towns hold mandatory public referendums to start the programs and institute the extra tax.

The legislation first passed in 2019 but was vetoed by then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who cited the tax impact. But this version of the bill smartly increases existing exemptions on home sales from $250,000 to $400,000 on the South Fork and from $150,000 to $200,000 on the North Fork. The bottom line: Transfer taxes would be reduced on transactions of $1 million or less on the South Fork and $400,000 or less on the North Fork.

Here's one other number to chew on: Had Cuomo signed the earlier legislation, it would have generated more than $30 million across the five towns in 2020, a missed pandemic housing bonus, to address this crying need.

The drive to make Long Island more affordable for Long Islanders has been proceeding in fits and starts. Hochul should sign this bill, to give the movement a good push. And then the region's other eight towns should think about adopting this or similar plans. They all have contributed to this infuriating problem that continues to plague Long Island. So they all have a role to play in the solution.