New Stickers Will Be Needed
The East Hampton Town Board and Town Trustees have agreed to require residents to obtain new permit stickers for parking and driving on beaches. The new permits, which will be free to town residents, will be valid for five years. A public hearing will be scheduled for early in the new year before the board formally votes to change the town code.
Current resident stickers issued for parking and driving on beaches never expire. Members of the town board and trustees, mindful that more than 30,000 such permits have been issued — a number that exceeds the population of the town — worried that many vehicles bearing current permits were subsequently sold to nonresidents, allowing “those who aren’t privileged and entitled to park in our parking lots and drive on our beaches to utilize them,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said at the town board’s Dec. 11 work session. “That’s been an ongoing problem.”
“This makes sense to do,” Bill Taylor, a deputy clerk of the trustees, said at that body’s Dec. 10 meeting. “One new permit, it’s good for five years.”
“I think it’s good to have an accurate count of vehicles on the beach,” said Rick Drew, the trustees’ other deputy clerk. “To really understand usage on the beach is important, and to retire some of the old stickers so people that don’t have a valid sticker aren’t using resources of our residents without being properly documented.”
Some previous trustees, and members of the advocacy group Citizens for Access Rights, had questioned the need for new permits. The trustees’ Dec. 10 vote to support the plan was unanimous, however.
New, color-coded permits will become available sometime next year, become mandatory in 2020, and expire in 2025, Mr. Van Scoyoc said. Permits effective in 2025 would be available in 2024, he said. “That would alleviate some congestion in the clerk’s office,” from which the permits would be distributed.
“We’re not talking about limiting them in any way,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said of new permits. “But it’s important that those using those stickers are in fact entitled to be driving on the beach.” The town will make an announcement when the new stickers are available, he said.