Thompson, NY - Town Cracks Down On Unauthorized Bungalows

Thompson, NY - Town officials fined two owners in the Garden Bungalows near Monticello Raceway $3,000 each and ordered one owner to tear down a bedroom and porch addition because it wasn't built to code. The other owner built a laundry room.
Also were the projects done without building permits and during a temporary construction ban in bungalow colonies. That ban has since been lifted.

"They tell their neighbors they will just pay the fine and it will be OK," Thompson Supervisor Tony Cellini said. "Well, it is not going to be OK. We have laws. Everyone else abides by the laws."

Thompson recently tightened its building laws for bungalows and has been on the prowl lately for shoddy work. "It was basically shoddy construction," the town Planning Board's attorney, Paula Kay said. "They are building where children are living. The town is not going to tolerate it when families, especially children, are put in danger by shoddy construction work."

"I don't believe people are doing it on purpose," said Rabbi Bernard Freilich, the state police's special assistant to the superintendent and a liaison between the towns and the Hasidic and Orthodox communities. "I think a lot of people are just unaware."

Friday, Thompson evicted six families in the Empire Cottages colony off Route 42 near the high school. That colony was building without several permits, and didn't have hot water in some of the bungalows.
"We went door to door and told people to leave," Kay said.