A controversy over property rentals is heating up in a beachfront community in The Rockaways.
Some homeowners are being accused of taking advantage of a city program to cash in on a major tax break, CBS2's Lisa Rozner reported Wednesday.
It's prime waterfront property: several homeowner communities made up of around 1,500 homes known as "Arverne by the Sea" in the Rockaway peninsula were built in the early 2000s as part of an urban renewal project.
The city designated it an "urban development action area project," which means homeowners would get a huge break on their taxes.
"We were also first-time homebuyers, so that was helpful," homeowner Adam Linet said. "Our tax rates are probably around 25 percent of what they would normally be."
It was a great deal, which is why the Department of Housing Preservation and Development required every homeowner make it their primary residence.
"One of the same zip codes that has among the deepest pockets of poverty in the entire city of New York. So, this was a real opportunity for folks who had been stuck in generational poverty," Assemblyman Khaleel Anderson said.
In February, a Department of Investigation report uncovered at least 15 homeowners violating the primary residence requirement, receiving in total more than $1 million in tax exemptions. Seventy properties had tax bills mailed outside of the development and one couple even turned its home into a fully licensed bed and breakfast.
Three months after the findings, Inn Your Element is available on reservation web sites. CBS2 also found on Airbnb entire homes available for $350 a night, another for $288, so residents believe there are many more homeowners violating the policy.
"I don't feel safe when so many people are coming in and out of a house," one woman said. "There are addresses that have been turned into three rental units rather than two."
"We have trash issues. We have quality-of-life issues with noise complaints," Linet added.
Finance records show one man who is a real estate investor according to LinkedIn owns at least three properties and also has an address at a luxury high-rise rental building in Manhattan.
Emails and calls to him and other alleged absentee homeowners were not returned.
CBS New York also caught up with yours truly who did a story and synopsis about this continuing scandal on Impunity City back in March. Looks like Mayor Adams and his HPD Dept are not going to do anything about this. Bunch of lily-livered scalliwags.
