Shelter Island property owners call new rental rules “devastating”

The price tags on posh Shelter Island pads are on the rise.
The price tags on posh Shelter Island pads are on the rise.

New rental regulations introduced to Shelter Island this spring are depriving middle-class residents of the tony East End vacation spot of essential income, locals complain.

In April, rules stating that no home can be rented more than once in a 14-day period were introduced. They were meant to help preserve the island’s quite culture and stay the influx of rowdy partiers. But many on the island say that the new rules could mean that they will have to say goodbye to their homes.

 

“I’m paralyzed with anxiety about how to survive the winter,” Julia Weisenberg, one of six homeowners who filed a lawsuit last week to repeal the vacation-rental law, told the New York Post. “What’s really going to ‘destroy’ this island for families is this law.”

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The new rules also require landlords to get a license, keep a registry of their guests and have tenants sign a “good neighbor” brochure.

But those behind the law aren’t shedding any tears for their poorer neighbors. They say it is essential to keep summer revelers at bay.

“It’s going to be another Montauk, and we don’t want that,” local Joseph Kronwitt said. [NYP] Christopher Cameron