The East Hampton Town Board is expected to vote tonight to amend its nonresident fees for beach parking and beach driving permits, adding a beach driving permit for co-op owners, who despite having property rights in the town are not technically residents. A rise in nonresident fees generally is also expected.
The town code differentiates between resident and nonresident permits for beach parking and beach driving, with both permits free to residents. Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte told his colleagues on Tuesday that he had been asked “if there could be a reduced fee in recognition of a co-op status being something different than a standard nonresident.”
Beach driving and beach parking fees were last adjusted in 2021, “so it seemed appropriate for an update, considering it’s been a few years,” Mr. Calder-Piedmonte said. “It also seemed appropriate to, I think, make this cutout for co-op owners.”
In 2021, the town board, hoping for a return to normalcy from the Covid-19 pandemic, raised nonresident beach parking and beach driving permit fees, and set a $125 beach parking permit fee for shareholders in co-ops.
The nonresident annual beach driving permit fee is proposed to rise to $450, from $400, “and we would create a second line of nonresident beach driving permits for co-op owners” set at $135, Mr. Calder-Piedmonte said. The number of permits in the latter category would be capped at 50.
The nonresident beach parking fee, currently set at $500, will rise to $600, should the resolution pass. Daily parking fees will remain the same — $50 at Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett and $35 at Kirk Park Beach in Montauk.
Mr. Calder-Piedmonte’s colleagues voiced their support for the plan.
