Illegal Housing in Glen Cove

As I have been out on the campaign trail talking with residents about their “gripes,” one particular issue has really come to the forefront: illegal housing.

In certain sections of Glen Cove, illegal housing is rampant. For example, in the Landing neighborhood, there has been a steep increase over the years in absentee owners and illegal rentals. With these overcrowded conditions comes a host of other problems, such as litter, infestation, noise and crime.

The overall feel of the neighborhood is changed and property values inevitably decreased. Homeowners residing in close proximity to illegal housing become frustrated with the decline in their quality of life and the fact that their neighbors do not take pride in and care for their property and larger community, as the long-term residents do.

Another symptom created by this epidemic is the disproportionate burden the occupants of illegal housing place upon our school system and city services, such as sanitation, water, etc. If there are four families living in a one family home, for example, that is four times the number of children attending the local school. Multiply that by the hundreds of illegal rentals in Glen Cove, and we have a very large-scale problem.

And, since these residents are never property owners and, most often, are working “off the books,” they do not pay any taxes and thus receive the benefit of our public schools and other services for free. But, as we all know, nothing is free in this world, so that means all of the hard-working, property-owning taxpayers of Glen Cove are footing the bill.

I attended the town hall meeting held by Mayor Ralph Suozzi at the . Residents in attendance expressed their frustration with the increase in illegal housing. One woman spoke of a problem house on her street where she believed there is drug activity. When the mayor asked for the location of this occurrence, the woman told him that she had already emailed him on the subject and provided the address four times, yet the problem had not been addressed.

There was also talk of someone seeing a baby being held out of an attic window, in which it was believed that people were illegally residing. (Notably, last week at a mayoral debate hosted by the CAUSE class at , Mayor Suozzi told the audience that not a single question or concern about illegal housing came up at any of this year’s town hall meetings.)

Another woman, who is a resident of the Landing, told me privately of drug deals regularly occurring on her street and even of a shooting that occurred in the neighborhood not long ago. A friend of mine told me that illegal housing and the resultant problems are growing in his neighborhood, which is not the Landing, but is near St. Rocco's church.

It is heartbreaking and infuriating that certain sections of Glen Cove are transforming into ghettos right before our very eyes. And let’s not fool ourselves – what happens in one section of Glen Cove, happens to all of Glen Cove, because problems like overcrowding, noise, drugs and gangs are not confined by artificial boundaries. It could be your street or my street next.

This is why it is so imperative that we reverse this trend starting NOW. It can be accomplished under the right leadership; Glen Cove needs representatives in government who will be vigilant and take a real stand for our community and its residents.

One of Ralph Suozzi’s many unfulfilled campaign promises was to tackle the illegal housing problem in Glen Cove. In a feigned attempt at keeping campaign promises, after his re-election in 2009, the Mayor created (predictably unanimously rubber-stamped by his city council) a Department of Code Enforcement. Sounds good, right? That Department today is unfunded and defunct. That alone is a huge indicator of where on the current administration’s list of priorities this issue of illegal housing falls.

Glen Cove cannot survive another two years of inaction. If we persist down this path, we will be overrun by the societal ills described above that are already prevalent in too many Glen Cove neighborhoods.