Housing wins: Hamptons voters show affordable housing is everyone’s priority

Additional taxes and the construction of more affordable housing are often painted as left-wing causes, which must seem like news to frequent swing voters in the Hamptons towns of East Hampton, Shelter Island, Southampton and Southold, who in this month’s midterms approved a Community Housing Fund to be filled with surcharges from home sales by a comfortable margin.

There is broad flexibility for the fund to be used to build and preserve housing for residents who find themselves being priced out of the typically upscale areas. The tax itself is relatively modest, standing at only half a percent of the sale price of a home to be paid by the buyer, but it is predicted to raise a minimum of $20 million a year that can be used to construct new housing or give grants or loans for residents to either build additional housing or finance their own home purchases.

It’s modeled after an existing Community Preservation Fund that finances environmental and water preservation, meaning that residents had already gotten a taste of how chipping in a little more for a specific purpose can do much to improve quality of life. If Long Islanders who overwhelmingly went red on the ballot can see the wisdom of setting aside funds for affordable housing, then self-described liberal New Yorkers anywhere in the state, including City Hall, the Legislature and governor’s mansion, have no excuse.

With that now clear, Gov. Hochul should double down on affordable housing construction (perhaps around transit hubs, resurfacing one of her better ideas from the first term). In New York City, Council members who purport to want equity should get out of the way as new developments with robust affordable housing creation are proposed.

No more demanding unfunded increases in the percentage of affordable units after reasonable plans have been made, no crowing about the “neighborhood character” of underutilized lots. If and when local members do raise a fuss, then so-called member deference should be fully dead. Affording rent, it turns out, is a winning issue.