Illegal housing, the Village of Mineola's most persistent headache, will again be at the head of the public agenda, as a proposal to increase penalties for landlords in violation of the housing code is up for public hearing tonight at Village Hall, 6:30 p.m.

The issue is by no means a new one for the village, and many other Long Island municipalities are grappling with it in one way or another. Just last week, the Brookhaven Town Board in Suffolk County unanimously approved the "Neighborhood Preservation Act," an amendment to its housing code which appears on paper to be similar to a proposal the Mineola Village Board considered, before throwing it out prior to a Nov. 17 public hearing.

The Brookhaven law limits the number of people who can live in a rental dwelling; a similar clause already exists in Mineola's housing code. The law also requires homeowners who wish to rent any portion of their home to register for a rental occupancy permit and undergo on-site inspection of the building. It is this section which seems to parallel the proposal that was ultimately tossed out by Mayor John Colbert, even though he had previously defended it as a way to keep better track of housing units.

Before the Nov. 17 hearing, Colbert said of the proposal, "It lets us know how many apartments a landlord has in a building. We'll know from the onset. We have attempted for six years to get into some of these buildings. This law will make it easier to identify who is in violation."

Both the Brookhaven law and Mineola's proposal levied fees for these permits. This, Colbert said, proved to be unfair to those in compliance of the law, as a sort of extra tax, which he deemed too burdensome. However, the Town of North Hempstead already has a rental occupancy registration law on its books.

The village's proposal up for public hearing tonight is to increase penalties for landlords in violation of existing housing code, which governs everything from fuel use to occupancy. However, occupancy is at the core of the mayor's crackdown on illegal rentals. According to the code, one occupant is permitted per habitable room with at least 80 square-feet of floor area; two occupants per 120 square-feet of habitable floor area; and three occupants per 180 square-feet of habitable floor area.

The fines for violations would be increased to $1,000, up from $250, for a first offense, and to $3,000 for a second offense within five years.

While the village's motivation seems to be toward safety, the issue has polarized residents who own one-family homes against those who have multiple-family dwellings.

Indeed, a letter anonymously sent to the Mineola American calls on owners of one-family dwellings to fight for their interests.

"The taxpayers of Mineola who own one-family homes must show an active interest by attending village board meetings just like those 150 people who own multiple apartments in their home or homes," the letter said. "We need to protect our way of life, to be able to maintain the value of our homes and to guarantee that we are not saddled with unjust tax burden by greedy and unscrupulous owners who wish to enrich themselves at our expense."

Elsewhere, the issue has gotten decidedly hotter.

In Brookhaven, many believe the law is specifically targeting immigrant day laborers who often live together in crowded accommodations. There, anti-immigrant sentiment has been very much out in the open. The law only applies to homes that are not owner occupied, which smacks of unfairness, according to Nadia Marin-Molina, executive director of the Workplace Project, a nonprofit immigrant rights group.

Stefan H. Krieger, director of the Housing Rights Clinic at Hofstra Law School, said, "In Brookhaven, instead of looking at the condition of the housing, the infractions of codes by landlords, they're looking at this occupancy issue. Illegal apartments have been a problem to some people for a long time. Prior to immigrants coming, it was a way for some people to help defray the cost of housing ¬ people would rent out rooms illegally."

In fact, 65 percent of rental units on Long Island are illegal in one way or another, according to Samuel E. Miller, a civil rights specialist with the regional office of Housing and Urban Development.

Krieger said that, at the heart of the issue, many Long Island residents are more worried about losing a way of life than tax revenue or even lives due to fire hazards.

"What this is is people have moved to Long Island to be able to escape the city and now they're feeling the city is encroaching on them," Krieger said.

Water Moloughney, Mineola's attorney for code enforcement, said the village's illegal housing situation has a great deal to do with people wanting to get their children into better schools, even if it means taking a step down in the family's housing accommodations.

"The suspicion we've had has been that people will seek a school system that will allow their children to be in an atmosphere that encourages learning, a more responsive and responsible environment, especially if the child needs special services," Moloughney said. "So, people migrate from another locale ¬ commonly referred to as the City of New York ¬ and come to Nassau County. Then, they inhabit a space not up to par with the place they had either in Queens or elsewhere."

Moloughney said that while a good number of those inhabiting illegal apartments are undocumented, there are plenty who are American citizens, and that the only people benefiting from the process is the landlords.

"The landlords use the school systems as an enticement and get a premium from these people," he said. "In effect, the opportunity the educational system affords is something we applaud, but it also puts a burden on the services of the village."

In 1994, Colbert tried to take Village of Mineola's campaign against illegal housing to a new level, seeking to have the school district identify the surnames of children living at particular addresses suspected to be in violation of the code.

The mayor also went on to say, according to an Aug. 24, 1994 issue of the Mineola American, "[Residents] should go to the board of education meeting and ask why they are allowing our taxes to pay for the education of children whose parents are not paying taxes, affecting both the senior citizens and those who are trying to start out in life."

Moloughney said the mayor misspoke when he implied that all children of parents who rent should be denied public education, but explained the idea behind enlisting the school's help, which eventually turned out to be prohibited by a federal law:

"We wanted to know the surnames but not the individuals," Moloughney said. "That information was not forthcoming. We were hoping to get an idea, by surname, how many people with different names were living in any given address. If there were three people of different surnames at a particular address, that would indicate the possibility of occupancy violations. We're not into persecution, but education and zoning enforcement are two distinct concepts."

If you scan the classifieds section of any local newspaper, you will find that a studio apartment in Mineola runs anywhere from $700-900. A one-bedroom can cost up to $1000. Compared with other areas of Nassau County, these rents are exceedingly high, probably because of the greater job opportunities in the area, known as the HUB. The problem is that, while jobs requiring all levels of skill are here, housing is very costly. While a lawyer who works at the county courthouse can easily afford to rent and buy in an area like Mineola, other jobs don't provide enough income to make the $800-a-week cut. In this way, Mineola's housing situation is very similar to that of Brookhaven, where the day laborers are needed by local contracting companies, but housing is too expensive for them to live there.

Moloughney agrees that the village attracts many people with its availability of work.

"Mineola is one of the few villages that has more people than its limits during the day," Moloughney said. "In most communities, there is an outflow in the morning hours and a returning in the evening hours. Mineola has people coming here during the day, be it in the office buildings, the hospital, the court complex, so literally the population is greater during the day than at 8 p.m."

However, Moloughney disagrees that people who work in the village but cannot afford to live there have no other option but to rent tiny, unsafe spaces.

"If there is a need for something in this village," Moloughney said referring to 'low-income housing,' "then instead of doing things illegally, why not propose a change in the court of public opinion? The economic realities for someone starting out, whether you are documented or not, cause you to have to make choices, but there are options."