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Jaine Mehring
Jaine Mehring of Amagansett, who founded the organization Build.In.Kind East Hampton, will talk with East End journalist Biddle Duke at 7 p.m. on Friday, March 31, at the Mandala Yoga Center for Healing Arts in Amagansett. Admission is free.
In a Zoom conversation last week, edited for length and clarity, Mehring talks about the changes she’s seen in her own community, and how she believes Build.In.Kind East Hampton can start moving local officials toward development strategies that protect the region’s quality of life by seeking balance.
Q: Tell me a little bit about Build.In.Kind. Explain to me exactly what you’re hoping to see happen.
I started just over a year ago, and it came out of a year or two prior to starting it, really trying to figure out how stuff was getting built out here. Because I’m looking around, I’m walking the dog — you’ve got 10,000 square feet here, a 5,000 there, the whole bit. And so I got very curious of, like, well, how did these things get approved? Who’s doing all this stuff?
I spent a good year or so before I started Build.In.Kind, watching zoning board meetings and reading the code and watching the Planning Department and all those things.
So, the mission was really two-fold. Number one, I was picking up in the community pretty much anywhere you go, people are, like, “Oh, I can’t believe what’s happening” — whether it’s about houses or small businesses.
But what I started to realize, when I started going to Town Board meetings and things like that, is that we can’t just keep talking among ourselves. We have to go to the Town Board and we have to ask/tell, “We see this as an issue for lots of reasons — and oh, by the way, we would like you to do something about it.”
So that’s mandate one that I set up for myself and for Build.In.Kind: Get people engaged, get people focused, and get people to feel that they are empowered to speak up and get involved.
But, secondarily, the whole real thing I’m trying to make happen is … I do want to compel — and I’m just really focused on East Hampton for now — compel the East Hampton Town Board to say yes.
We do not see what’s going on with land use and development as consistent with any of our imperatives, whether it’s the climate emergency, coastal resilience, affordability. And to be able to push them, for lack of a better phrase, to change the zoning code, to rein things in and restore more balance to how land is used and developed in town.
There’s a little bit of a third one, which is, I would love to get all the people involved in the … I’ll call it the real estate ecosystem. The developers, the builders, the architects, the real estate people are all very sucked into what’s going on, and that’s their business. I would love to try and influence some of them and get them on our side.
Q: What’s your background coming into this?
I grew up in Queens, and my first exposure out here — we never had money growing up, but I remember in the 1960s, my parents, they were still married, and they’d scrape together some dough each summer, and we’d go stay in Montauk at a motel. I stayed at the Ronjo, I think, in 1965.
So my initial take was just that those trips out here, maybe three summers in a row, and I have these intensely vivid memories of what it’s about and have been loving it ever since.
I bought my house out here 21 years ago, in Amagansett. I live in Beach Hampton, small house in this very cherished, iconic community. I worked on Wall Street, I had a 30-year career in financial services, a bit of a fish out of water. I was lucky I was able to buy my house.
And then I decided to start my own consulting business about seven years ago. And when I did, I had much more time. I always used my house year round. I always came out in the winter, but I was able to start spending more time out here, because I had more flexibility. And then I guess I must have had a premonition before the pandemic, but I really moved out here full time in 2018.
Q: You beat everybody out here, basically.
Oh, right. So I’ve been out here and I’ve always paid attention, I’ve always been observant. I think with a dog who likes to hunt, we’re always going places, we’re going all around town. And you know when you’re walking your dog, you’re looking around and it’s, like, “Whoa, where did that come from?” Or: “Where did all those trees go?”
Q: So if there’s a unifying philosophy to Build.In.Kind, if you could sum that up briefly, what would it be?
Well, I’m riffing on this term. To “build in kind” is an official Building Department construction phrase: replacing what you have, making it better. And I’m taking poetic license with it, because it’s not about, like, “Oh, okay, I have a 1,100-square-foot house today. I have to keep the same thing.”
But it’s literally to respect what you have and to build, develop, use land in a way that is literally kinder. Kinder to the ground, kind to the water quality, kinder to your neighbors, to the sense of place, to the viewshed. And then it really is about … I would love to say my philosophy is to change hearts and minds.
I’ve read about this thing called a land ethic. My mandate is not to take people’s ownership rights away from them, but I do believe that, especially in a place that is natural resource-dependent and beauty-dependent, we all have a responsibility to each other and to the land, and to have some stewardship that’s tied into what everyone thinks they’re entitled to on their own properties.
Q: That’s with the acknowledgment that while everyone needs to have that in mind, it’s really the officials who make the decisions that have the biggest impact. Is that fair?
Yes, exactly. And I think the code that we have — when I’m talking about the code, it’s zoning code — the zoning code really reduces down to one table. So there’s a table, it’s the allowance. It has its different dimensions. It has house size, which is a thing we call gross floor area. It has the maximum allowables: the height, the setbacks from the front and the sides and the back. The clearing ratio, the amount of your property you can clear. And then these things called coverage. How much of your property does the actual footprint of your house cover, and how much does all your stuff on the property cover?
And these numbers have been in place for quite a while, like, a few decades. But what’s interesting is, until about five, seven years ago, people really did not build to the maximum allowable. So the code was fine.
And then something changed significantly. Again, this is prepandemic. I hate using this term “wealth concentration,” because it sounds like I’m anti-capitalist or whatever. But there is a concentration of capital that’s been going on for a while. And the biggest difference is, speculators have come in heavy into the Hamptons, lots of other places, too.
So when they come in and buy a piece of property, it’s a transaction for them. And so they are the ones who have really set the tone. They will build corner to corner to corner, up and down, as big as they possibly can.
That has exploded the size of houses very significantly in the last, let’s say, seven years. And, unfortunately, that sets a level of dialogue for other people who just want to build their own house.
But the amount of speculative activity is, I think, why I don’t worry so much about, oh, it’s property owners’ rights, because it’s really not even about property owners’ rights anymore.
Q: Because it’s speculators.
It’s so speculative, right.
Q: People who are property owners — people who live on the properties that they own — then have to follow those trends if they want to maintain the value of their properties. Is that fair?
Yeah. I’ve read some academic research that says that property values ultimately are set relative to each other. So I know our real estate community and builders will say, “Oh, house price correlates to the actual size of the house.” But there is research that shows it’s relative.
And so we’re in this sort of mutually assured destruction right now, because it’s 3,000, it’s 3,500, it’s 5,000, and that’s really what’s happening up to the upper limit. It’s a type of competition.
But again, it’s not even an individual, like, “Oh, I want to have the biggest house on the block.” I don’t really want a bigger house. But at the end of the day now, here in Beach Hampton, I now have the smallest house — and that sort of puts me one day at a disadvantage.
Q: Because your house isn’t going to be valued as high as your neighbors’.
I bought my house to love it and to live in it. That sounds like a show on cable — “Love It and Live In It”! But I think it’s less of an issue for me.
But many people do think about their houses, it’s just a part of their portfolio. Even if they do live in them, that’s a second-, third-, fourth-home owner and then they get talked into it.
Q: Many people buy houses here because they want to live in them and love them, but only part-time, and it becomes part of an investment strategy as well. And so these market stressors are important.
Yes and, unfortunately, I think there’s just a lot less love, a lot less about love right now. Even some of these big houses … it’s not even people’s second homes. This is multi homes. This is third, fourth — they’ll jet in, jet out. And, again, I sound like I’m mocking, and I don’t mean to, but I think it is just the dynamic, and there’s no other way to really describe it.
So they’re barely here even — they’re not even used like second homes, they’re used so sporadically, and a number of these spec homes, they’re just going right to rental.
So there’s not a lot of love left in the Hamptons. There’s people who are from here or have the views of the place, but we’re starting to dwindle.
Q: And the effect is significant on them. On the people who are left here who love the place and bought because they want to live here and love it.
I love it. And there are times I walk around saying, oh my gosh, am I going to be able to stay if this keeps going? And now I’m so invested in this right now, I do get actually a little too agitated when I see some of this stuff, but because, it’s a little bit like, I don’t understand — how could they not love it?
You hear it in the community. So, first of all, some people are getting fed up, the affordability. People can barely afford or can’t afford to live here, even if they have good jobs, even if they are small-business owners. I don’t have to tell you all of that.
… I’m actually trying to get the numbers. I’m doing this project where I’m going through Zillow and I’m seeing what’s on the market now. Then I’m going back and I’m looking at what the property was before: It was a half-acre that had a ranch house on it, or maybe it was an acre that had a 2,500-square-foot house on it — small houses, modest homes, things that could have been within the affordable range, things that could have been starter homes. You can’t touch them anymore, because they’re built up because on a half-acre now you can stuff — and by the way, our code does not count the basement. And basements are not like in the old days, like a creepy space with a washer-dryer. They are 12 feet thick in the village. They’re 15 feet deep, I think. And they are tricked out. They have bedrooms.
Q: That’s where the screening room goes.
Right? So there’s a screening room, but it’s also bedrooms — it’s occupancy. And so when you take it all in, now you can get a 6,000-square-foot house on a half-acre, plus a garage, plus a pool.
So as you know, it’s very hard to find a vacant lot that’s modest in size or something with a smallish house that would be a perfectly great place for a couple and two kids or whatever. It’s all just being consumed, consumed, consumed. And that part of our housing stock is being hollowed out.
And I believe that is just a huge issue for affordability. And plus we didn’t even talk about the rental market and everything going to Airbnb and all that kind of stuff.
… One thing that we don’t have in this town or village is something called a Community Land Trust, which is a model that has been used all over the country for decades. And, basically, it can raise money. It’s a 501(c)(3) and you can raise private money, and then you can use that money to buy land. And then you can partner with municipalities, states — you can get grants and you can renovate houses and make them affordable.
Basically, the trust holds the land forever, and then whatever structure is on it can be purchased or rented, and then there’s a 99-year ground lease. So that makes it more affordable for people, because they’re not paying for the land, they’re paying for the house.
It’s a longer, much longer conversation. But we need to start thinking about: Do we have all the tools and all the venues that we can have in place?
Q: So what’s the overriding message that Build.In.Kind brings to town officials and village officials?
So, basically, our town has a comprehensive plan and code, and in both of those things there are very clearly stated objectives — and they’re quite beautiful. They’re about rural quality and health and safety and natural resources and all these things. And then on top of that, in the last four years, the town has raised some other key imperatives — climate, coastal resiliency, affordable housing.
And so the main message is that all those things are codified. But somehow what’s actually allowable and what’s happening in the built environment is not consistent with our principles, our objectives, our imperatives.
So with Build.In.Kind, I want to see the actual guts of the code and the actual things that are happening on the way land is used in the community to match the core objectives and imperatives, these sort of sustaining principles.
And, really, if I had to say one thing, it’s about balance. It’s just about restoring some balance to land use.
Q: What I find interesting is that you seem to be saying the municipalities have the goals correct. It’s just that on the ground, they’re not getting the job done.
Yeah, because they didn’t realize that there was such a gap between the stated goals and objectives and then the actual parameters. Because, again, no one was pushing the envelope — but now the envelope has been pushed. And then on top of it, we have more important new priorities. And so that is not reflected in what’s actually allowed to be done by right. It’s just not matching up, basically. It’s outdated.
It’s like any other core document: It needs to evolve so that our overriding long-term vision goals, objectives, imperatives, all those things, can be manifested and realized and matched by what’s actually happening on the ground.
So the good news is, we already have those foundational documents — we don’t have to redo them. And everyone I talk to in the town, people, the town boards, all of them, they all believe in it. And every citizen, when I read them the passages from it, like, “Oh, that’s in there? Yeah, that’s what we think, too.”
But we just have to catch up with the dynamics of the world, because it’s just gotten away from us.
