Several LI towns discuss saturation laws for sex offenders

Many Long Island parents are complaining their communities are being overrun with clusters of convicted sex offenders. Maxine Wilson says her Coram community is currently home to 56 registered sex offenders,

News 12 Staff

May 11, 2006, 1:45 PM

Updated 6,706 days ago

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Many Long Island parents are complaining their communities are being overrun with clusters of convicted sex offenders.
Maxine Wilson says her Coram community is currently home to 56 registered sex offenders, many of them concentrated in a small area called Gordon Heights. Laura Ahearn, of Parents for Megan's Law, says more than 10 live on one block alone. She says the same person owns all of their houses and that laws must be passed to prevent this from happening.
Ahearn is pushing for what she calls a saturation statute that would prevent landlords from renting properties that are close in proximity to convicted sex offenders. The law would restrict a landlord?s ability to rent 10 to 20 percent of units to any registered sex offender within a half- to quarter-mile radius.
Brookhaven, Islip and Babylon officials are all looking into statutes that would limit the number of registered sex offenders that can live in one area. Many civil rights activists argue that the saturation laws, paired with recently passed residency restriction laws, leave reformed sex offenders with too few options for a place to live.