Yes to Nature Preserve
A 37-acre oceanfront property on Napeague owned by East Hampton Town was designated as a nature preserve by the town board last Thursday night, but the question of whether there will be parking allowed along the preserve’s western edge, on Dolphin Drive, remains.
Advocates of maximum public access to the preserve and the beach said last Thursday at a hearing on a proposed parking ban on Dolphin Drive that off-road parking spaces could easily be created along one side of the road in a right-of-way area.
Others, including a number of residents of Dolphin Drive and streets nearby, said that parking cars on the roadside could damage the fragile environment of the preserve and create a dangerous situation with restricted access along the narrow road.
Some painted the issue as a conflict between residents of the area and the public interest at large.
“The public has to have rights, too,” Jay Blatt, a local fisherman, said. “There are thousands of us and 150 of these people. If you’re going to not let people park on a road, just because they’re elitist, it’s not fair,” he told the board.
“I urge you as a board not to set a dangerous precedent by de facto privatization of a beach access,” said Ira Barocas, a resident of Babe’s Lane in Springs, where the public has access to a town preserve on Three Mile Harbor.
Tim Taylor spoke on behalf of the group Citizens for Access Rights, which coalesced around a challenge by Napeague oceanfront property owners to use of the beach in front of their house by vehicles and their owners. The property owners have sued the East Hampton Town Trustees and the town, and the matter is still in court.
Mr. Taylor said his group “believes that a parking ban in this area is a loss of access.”
The town trustees support parking in the area, two members of the elected body, Tim Bock and Deborah Klughers, told the town board. But in light of the lawsuit, said Mr. Bock, “nothing should be done at this time.”
“This is a precedent you don’t want to set,” Ms. Klughers told the board, “. . . to allow small groups of people to prohibit large groups of people to be able to access” public lands.
The question of parking, said Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, should be decided along with development of an overall management plan for the nature preserve.