East Hampton Town's building department is a 'major problem,' critics say, amid bribery charges and backlogs

The house Alex Forden and his crew built is complete — a 10,000-square-foot mansion in Amagansett near the beach that's styled as an artist's residence.

But eight months after construction, the Town of East Hampton home is still missing a certificate of occupancy that would allow it to be legally occupied and insured.

“It’s not the ideal scenario for all the hard work,” said Forden, a homebuilder based in Sag Harbor. "You want to check the last box, send that piece of paper to the client, and say ... enjoy your home."

The multimillion-dollar home is stuck in limbo in one of the country's wealthiest real estate markets. And it's symptomatic of what buyers, sellers and builders see as a larger problem: The bureaucracy overseeing home construction from Wainscott to Montauk, as well as the routine permits that let homeowners add a new deck or pool, has slowed to a crawl.

East Hampton's building department has been mired in dysfunction, failing to keep pace with demands for permits and inspections, critics say, slowing construction and stalling real estate closings.

Across the Hamptons, construction is the engine of the  economy. Homes routinely sell for tens of millions of dollars, and new builds and renovations fuel jobs, real estate commissions and tax revenue that fills municipal coffers. But in the Town of East Hampton, a growing number of critics contend, the system underpinning it has broken.

 "It's the driving force in the local economy — and it’s really been hindered," said Forden, who has built custom homes across the South Fork.

The building department also was the subject of a criminal investigation. Last month, Suffolk prosecutors charged a former building inspector and an office manager with accepting bribes in exchange for fast-tracking permits. The slowdown also has emerged as a key political issue as the town's supervisor faces a Democratic primary challenge next month from the mayor of East Hampton Village.

“Certain clients are staying away from East Hampton Town,” Forden said. “They’re buying in either East Hampton Village or further west, so that they don’t have to be subject to the long lead times for permits and approvals.”

The backlog comes amid a series of developments over the past few years, including the consequences of two town laws, the departure of a building inspector and others, and a hiccup related to new software.

To right the ship, the town is outsourcing reviews to four architectural firms, committing up to $130,000 for the effort, records show. The town suspended one of the two laws, which, adopted in 2023, required new safety inspections before a home can be sold. 

The moves, officials say, should help the department catch up while it hires and trains new staff.

The stakes are high.

More than $6 billion in residential real estate in the Hamptons changed hands from the first quarter of last year through the first quarter of this year — a 15.6% increase from a year earlier, according to Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, an appraisal firm that tracks the market. The average home price last quarter reached a record $4.2 million, Miller said.

"It's a lot of economic activity, and a lot of people earn their living working in construction,"  Wainscott-based builder Pat Trunzo said. "To have it all grind to a halt from mismanagement really hurts."

“It’s the No. 1 thing we’re working on every day to address," Richard Normoyle, the town's principal building inspector, said of the backlog. He was appointed to the role in September. 

A 'domino effect'

Permit delays anywhere would have economic repercussions for a municipality and builders alike. In a place like the Hamptons, the consequences are magnified. 

The Town of East Hampton issued 108 new home permits and 1,498 other building permits in 2024. Permit fees, along with real estate transfer taxes, are significant revenue generators for town and village governments on the East End. Last year alone, East Hampton received $46.9 million for its Community Preservation Fund, which is funded by a 2% real estate tax.

Town officials say they want to reduce wait times for complex permits, such as for new homes, to six to eight weeks, and simpler permits — like for decks or pools — to about two weeks. Those time frames are standard in other towns, builders said.

In East Hampton, it can take more than a year to permit new home construction and about three months for simpler projects, builders say. 

“It's a major problem,” said Mike Florio, CEO of the Long Island Builders Institute, a trade group for the construction industry. “They're waiting so long for permits that they don't have jobs lined up, so they have to lay off their crews until they can get a permit and get the projects in-line."

Town and industry officials point to staffing shortages and a shift to a new software that made it difficult to fast-track simpler projects. The town's principal building inspector left more than a year ago to work for the Village of East Hampton.

Around the same time, East Hampton experienced a spike in residential building applications. It typically receives about 10 home-building applications each month but recorded 84 last June — the month before a new law requiring smaller house sizes took effect, officials said. Last August, the department cut public office hours so staff could focus on reviews and inspections. 

“No one was prepared for that, and it just created a domino effect where we've been trying to catch up on that ever since,” Normoyle said.

Bribery charges reveal 'shortcomings'

Some contractors have allegedly tried illegal methods of working around delays.

Last month, Suffolk prosecutors charged two people with accepting bribes in exchange for accelerating approvals. Prosecutors said a former building inspector, Ryan Benitez, and a senior office assistant, Evelyn Calderon, solicited $16,100 from contractors between June 2024 and January 2025 to prioritize their permits and certificates of occupancy. Both Benitez and Calderon have pleaded not guilty. Benitez's and Calderon's attorneys declined to comment. Their next court appearance is scheduled for June 24.

Calderon’s employment has been suspended since April 2025. Benitez resigned in January, town records show.

Normoyle declined to discuss the probe but said it exposed the department’s “shortcomings.”

“We are working toward reorganizing the building department so that these things won’t happen again in the future,” he said.

The department now has 13 employees, up from nine at the start of last year, Normoyle said. The town also hired a retired Huntington Town building inspector as a subcontractor to do inspections and train new employees.

East Hampton historically has struggled to recruit and retain employees amid the high cost of housing and long commutes from points west. Some hires stay only a few months before departing for jobs closer to home.

Law strains department

A big contributor to the backlog is the 2023 town law, now suspended, requiring homes to have an updated certificate of occupancy in place before any sale. A certificate ensures  a building complies with safety codes and can be lawfully occupied.

The town added the requirement to protect buyers from inheriting outstanding building violations. But the measure has strained the department, which is responsible for scheduling inspections and approving permits. About 60% of occupancy certificate applications involve legalizing previously unpermitted work, Councilwoman Cate Rogers said.

Town officials expected to approve 2,400 COs in 2025 but only issued 722, or less than one-third of the projection, town data shows.

The enforcement pause, which runs through the end of the year and is retroactive to January 2024, allows home sales to proceed without an updated certificate, avoiding the risk of prosecution. But the town said it will continue reviewing applications and is encouraging sellers to apply for them.

Some real estate deals have closed with money held in escrow, where a part of the sale is withheld from the seller until an updated certificate of occupancy is issued.

What should be a two- to four-week process for securing a certificate of occupancy now takes up to six months, said Jonathan Tarbet, an East Hampton land-use attorney.

“There’s probably a couple hundred real estate deals townwide that are stuck [and] not closing,” he said in an interview. “It’s pretty crazy.”

Jackie Lowey, a Hamptons real estate broker, said, "An unintended consequence of this rule is that, when you have a building department that is so behind schedule, people are going to go ahead and do work without permits. So they're actually defeating the purpose of their own regulations." 

'Nowhere in sight'

East Hampton builder Larry Kane, who has built custom homes for celebrities, said the construction industry is part of the town's identity.

"Out here, you work in some way in the building industry, or in a business that is supported because of the building industry," he said.

For builders on the ground, like Trunzo, the delays continue to define the daily rhythms of the Hamptons.

A third-generation homebuilder, Trunzo said there’s a home he wants to start building in East Hampton. But the building permit, he said, is “nowhere in sight.”

“You can’t get a job done unless you can get a job started,” Trunzo said. “We need to stay busy.”