I want to go paddling on Long Island….but I’m afraid I’ll get a parking ticket.
The paddling is beautiful out east, but I’ve been burned by expensive parking tickets in the past. Years ago I got a big ticket for parking on a dead-end street in Montauk for just 10 minutes to check a launch site ($150, likely higher penalty now). Just seems nonsensical to me, Harrumph! So this time I'm doing some research to avoid getting fined.
Gaining access to the shore for paddling has become increasingly difficult. The British Canoe Union (BCU), the organization where I got my kayak training, used to have an entire committee devoted to the issue of improving and maintaining public access to British waters. Currently I see two campaigns running in England, the “Canoeing is Not a Crime Campaign”, and Canoe England’s “Rivers Access Campaign”. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything similar in the U.S. run by the American Canoe Association, perhaps due to the “home rule” mindset we have here that puts such issues in the control of local municipalities. Sorry if this sounds like whining about a first-world problem, but ideally coastal access should be available to all, with reasonable fees and limitations to prevent crowding or damage to coastal land where necessary. Anything more restrictive is too much. I’m talking about restrictions on public lands and roadways here, not private property which is another matter. This really is a fairness, even a moral issue when you think about it - in a democracy, can the coastline be so thoroughly walled off to the common man?
My focus this spring is the waters between the two forks of Long Island, launching (hopefully) somewhere in Southampton or Easthampton. Good luck, right. But with the help of StreetView in GoogleMaps I scanned the roads for “no parking” signage at some promising spots. Then I checked the town codes online to be sure parking was OK. Unfortunately, getting assurance that parking is or is not allowed at any given spot is very hard to do.
The mouth of Accabonac Harbor in East Hampton has two “kayak launches” labelled in Google Maps and recognized as such by the Town that intrigued me – Gerard Drive Nature Park and Louse Point Park. Both are dead-end streets with small-boat ramps. However, signage on the street says “Parking by Permit Only”. [It did occur to me that someone at Google could be going a little “kayak launch” label-happy at his desk in Silicon Valley without vetting these “kayak launch” spots at the municipal level …]
Town regulations are available online via eCode360 - and just as the street signs say, the Town of East Hampton’s parking regulations confirm that parking at Gerard and Louse parks is not allowed without a permit: “In accordance with the provisions of § 240-34, no person shall park a vehicle without a permit at any time upon any of the following described streets or parts of streets…” And sure enough, Gerard Drive and Louse Point Road are both listed along with dozens of other streets encompassing the entire town! So, how much is this parking permit? Speaking to the Town Clerk the old fashioned way (by phone) reveals that there is a $600 non-resident parking permit. No way am I paying $600 to go paddling for a single day, who would?! What’s more, the distracted Town Clerk I spoke to wasn’t sure if this permit is only valid at designated public “beaches” in Southampton, or if it’s also valid for the many waterfront parks, roadways, and landings located elsewhere in the Town. So, even if I paid this extortionate fee of $600, I’d have no assurance that the permit would allow parking at these two kayak launches on Accabonac. Getting straight answers from busy town staff can be challenging…so next I called the cops. A friendly Easthampton policeman basically said “if there’s a sign saying no parking don’t park there.” Although good advice, it didn’t give me the assurance that parking at landings without signage is risk-free.
With uncertainty lingering after my telephone calls, I searched further and found several nearby roads that are also marked as “kayak launch” on GoogleMaps! For example, one launch shown on the aptly named “Landing Lane” had no visible “no parking” signs on Google Streetview. Great legal parking on the water! But reading the parking regs says otherwise - and this is where it gets wacky... The Town of East Hampton Code § 240-15 says that parking is prohibited “from Old Stone Highway along the west side of Landing Lane ...to the launching ramp and water access”. OK, so maybe it’s legal to park on the other side, the east side of Landing Lane?... Not so fast - digging further into the code uncovers ADDITIONAL regulations at § 240-79 which say the following for Landing Lane, “... no person shall park a vehicle without a permit...from the dead end at the launching ramp and water access point to 300 feet along the east side of Landing Lane.” Crap, really?? So the code prohibits parking on BOTH sides of Landing Lane in separate code sections depending on which side of the street you’re concerned with!! Who, besides me, is going to go to the trouble of digging deeply into the parking regs for a day paddle?! It’s sufficiently difficult to get the full story that it seems purposeful to me, as if the town is being cryptic so that it can collect parking ticket revenue.
One has to wonder, what is the intent of such restrictive parking regulations - and who are they targeting exactly? Nonresident kayakers are clearly not the reason for these regulations - there aren't enough of us to clog Southampton’s waterfront streets. Maybe it’s other users causing the problem? Consider for a moment the relative priority of the potential users of these two Accabonac Harbor “pocket parks”, or similar dead-end streets appropriate for hand-launching small boats. New York State uses the terms “water-dependent uses” and “water-enhanced uses” in its coastal land use guidance documents (Local Waterfront Revitalization Program) which apply to the planning, development, and use of waterfront properties. Kayaking is clearly a “water-dependent” use, you can’t do it anywhere else. As such, it’s given priority over non-water-dependent uses in this State guidance. In simple terms, the State requires that communities prioritize water-dependent uses, like marinas or public beaches or kayak launches, on lands adjacent to water rather than shopping malls or parking lots that could be located elsewhere. At these two parks on Accabonac Harbor, such users as paddle sports enthusiasts, sailboat operators, or swimmers should be given priority over non-water dependent users. Second priority under this State guidance are “water-enhanced” uses (and users). A park that provides water views to motorists or pedestrians would fall under this category. Maybe it’s folks sitting in their cars looking out at the water that are the problem motivating the Town to prohibit non-resident parking? If so, the Town should differentiate between water users who must have access (kayakers) and those who may benefit from access (car-sitters) and provide signage or regulations to preserve access to water-dependent users regardless of residency… Sadly, that’s not the case, as evidenced by my difficulty finding a place to launch my kayak!
A counter-argument to this is that residents who pay via their taxes for the maintenance and policing of the parks and roads should be given priority over nonresidents. But how much priority and who’s exactly paying for these parks and roads?
There is an oft-cited court case from Connecticut involving a jogger, Brenden Leydon, who was preventing from accessing his favorite beach because he was a nonresident. The 2001 decision in that case declared it illegal to bar nonresidents from Greenwich beaches. And there are earlier precedents. In 1973 the New York State Supreme Court struck down an ordinance in Long Beach that excluded nonresidents from the beaches there. These cases cite the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment which requires that States treat individuals equally under the law. And while I see that State law does require that municipalities provide permit parking for nonresidents, it’s typically limited to specifically-demarcated areas of specific towns as laid out in the New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law (Article 39). And as far as upper limits on what towns can charge non-residents, I’m not seeing much in my limited online research. So, charger high fees seem a currently “legal” way to dissuade nonresident visitors. Another wrinkle in this legal arena is Federal Funding. If a municipality gets (or got) federal funds to buy, develop, or maintain a park or roadway, then that means it can’t legitimately treat nonresidents differently than local residents at that park or roadway, at least that's part of the legal discussions in these cases. Ugh, this is getting complicated.
The Town clerk I spoke to mentioned that local hotels often have day-passes they give to their guests for parking, but again those are typically for a limited number of Town swimming beaches, not kayak launch sites. Not super helpful.
Maybe this post will result in some comments that will enlighten me about this topic further…I expect my digging into this subject will be ongoing.
