Recommendations Protecting Our Residents One of the first questions raised by the Croton Housing Task Force after seeing the data in the Westchester Housing Needs Assessment was whether the data collected for Croton was accurate. To that end, we attempted to independently validate the accuracy of information in the County report. This data collection process emphasized two separate and related points: (i) the historical preference for single family home construction in the Village has left us short of multi-family housing and rental units of all kinds. The multi-family units that do exist tend to be concentrated in specific areas of the village and to be over 50 years old. (ii) Information regarding both the number of units being rented and the condition of those units is severely limited by the current systems in place. Although the Westchester Housing Needs Assessment pointed to substandard conditions in both owned and rental units, privacy and property rights concerns make it difficult for the Village to act on owneroccupied units. However, the commercial relationship between owner and tenant allows the Village government more authority to ensure safe housing in rental units. Additionally, the small size of Croton’s rental inventory means market forces cannot operate effectively. The Village should start by creating a registry of all rental units in the Village. This registration system should include all rental units where there is more than one unit of housing on the lot. This simple registry will empower the Village by providing real information about the number of rental units in the Village. It will also help the Village Engineer and emergency services by equipping them with up-to-date building information and emergency contact information. Such registration would renew at a regular term (2 or 3 years). Numerous recent natural disasters, including the flooding following Hurricane Ida, have emphasized the need for municipalities to know about all rental units in their jurisdiction and ensure that those units are safe for their occupants. The registration ordinance passed by the town of Amherst, NY is attached as Appendix A as a model. A fee structure should be created that penalizes non-compliance with the registration or not providing adequate emergency contact information. The registry should also be paired with a right of inspection of the units by the Village Engineer and the Village Fire Inspector. The Village should consider the best way to implement the right of inspection, whether it would occur at the time of registration and renewal or whenever the unit is vacated. This right of inspection should be explicitly granted as part of the registration requirements, as shown in the model ordinance in Appendix A. Report of the Croton Housing Taskforce Page 10 The Village should provide all rental tenants with an annual notice of their rights under the Village Code and New York Law including information about relevant code requirements for rental units. Information should also be provided to all property owners in the Village to provide an opportunity for owners to confirm that their unit is part of the registry. The Village should also streamline information for tenants on the Village Website. The website should include a list of correct contacts and emergency contacts for tenants when issues arise that are not being successfully remediated by their landlord. The Village website should also provide a thorough listing of available rights and code requirements for tenants, both those under and those not under the regulations of ETPA. The Village Board should consider supplementing the publicly available information on the website with a dedicated annual meeting at which rental unit occupants can approach the Village Board with issues regarding both housing conditions and their ability to communicate with the Village regarding these issues. For multi-unit buildings built before 1974, the Village should consider decreasing the threshold of the ETPA. When Croton declared a housing emergency in 2003, it set a threshold of 50 units before multi-unit buildings were subject to the terms of ETPA. It is clear that in the 18 years since Croton’s declaration, the tenants of Bari Manor, the only building in Croton bound by the terms of ETPA, have benefited from the added protections ETPA provides. However, Croton has the highest ETPA unit threshold in Westchester. The Village Board should consider lowering the threshold to provide the protections of ETPA to more residents in Croton to 10 or even to 6, which is the lowest number allowed by the New York ETPA statute. The Village should also consider an ETPA carveout for multifamily buildings that work directly with the Village to provide safe and affordable housing along the lines of the ETPA regulations passed by the Village of Ossining. Increased information and enforcement of our existing code creates the possibility that current tenants will be unable to live in their units because of code violations