As noted on the Village Of Babylon website, a public hearing will be held at 7:00pm on October 8th, 2019 at the Village Hall to consider the adoption of Village Of Babylon – Local Law 7 of 2019, which proposes to delete the current Babylon Village Rental Property Code and replace it with the text of local law 7.

As usual, the copy of the proposed law was provided as a badly scanned PDF, so were here at Home In Babylon have OCRed and corrected the text of Local Law 7 to make it easier to search and read.

I have read through the proposed law, which is much longer and detailed than the existing statute, and here are a few things that stood out to me.

Airbnb And Similar Rentals Are Outlawed

Local law 7 defines a Transient Rental Property as:

A rental dwelling or dwelling unit occupied by persons other than the owner or a family member of the owner and for which rent is received by the owner, directly or indirectly, in exchange for such rental occupation for a period of less than 30 nights.

It then goes on to call out listings on Airbnb, VRBO, Home Away and similar services as creating a “Rebuttable Presumption” that a unit is being used as a Transient Rental Property.

Under section §281-4, the law notes that a rental occupancy permit is required for all rentals and that no rental permit shall be issued to a transient rental property.

Exceptions are made for legally operating hotel/motel businesses, of which there are none currently in the Village of Babylon.

Each New Tenant Requires A Registration Form

It will be illegal for any owner to permit a tenant to take up residence without the owners first filling out and submitting a registration form approved by the Village Administrator to the Building Inspector. As per the law, a new form must be filed whenever a unit or portion thereof has become vacant and the owner intends to permit a new tenant or other person to take up residence.

Brokers Are Responsible For Following The Law

It will be illegal for any broker or agent to list or show a unit which does not have a current rental occupancy permit. It will be the responsibility of the broker to verify that such a permit exists.

After a unit has been rented, the broker will be responsible for ensuring that a rental registration form has been filed.

Penalties Are Increased

As per §281-19, the first violation will incur a fine of not less that $500 and not more than $1000. A second violation withing a five year period will incur a fine of not less that $1000 and not more than $3000. Third violations will incur a fine of not less that $2000 and not more than $5000.

Violations may also result in the offender spending up to fifteen days in jail. As per the law, each week’s continued violation will be considered a separate offense.

Two Other Proposed Laws for October 8

Two other proposed law will be discussed at the October 8th meeting.

Local Law 8 proposes to amend Village code with respect to the allowed height of fences, hedges and shrubbery on corner lots. Local Law 9 proposes to allow buildings on parts of Railroad Ave and Depot Place to have a height of up to forty feet.

fronting on Railroad Avenue between North Carl! Avenue and Deer Park Avenue and fronting on Depot Place running from Railroad Avenue to the Long Island Railroad trestle, the building height limit shall be 4 stories, but not exceeding 40 feet, as measured from the top of the curb, or the crown of the road where no curbs exists, to the highest point of the roof.

October 8 is Yom Kippur

Observance of Yom Kippur begins on sundown on October 8th, which may interfere with observant Jewish members of the Babylon Village community from attending

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