The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘An issue that has haunted Connecticut for too long’
A proposal would cap beach fees set by towns, but local leaders plan to fight back
Connecticut lawmakers are again setting their sights on the three-figure beach fees that some towns charge to non-residents, as the state’s larger parks and beaches struggle to accommodate a surge of new visitors.
A bill that is scheduled for debate on Friday proposes to cap the fees imposed by shoreline communities at no more than double the amount they charge to their own residents — an allowance that one sponsor described as an effort to compromise with local leaders that have long fought attempts by city and inland officials to expand access to the limited number of public beaches along the coast.
“I think one of the questions I have is, is there any bill that people will find reasonable to move forward with?” said state Rep. Eleni Kavros DeGraw, D-Avon, who serves as co-chair of the Planning and Development Committee that is considering the legislation.
Proponents of reining-in Connecticut’s municipal beach fees have often pointed to the disparity between the prices charged to locals and out-of-towners in smaller suburbs like Westport, where the $775 cost for a non-resident seasonal parking pass is more than 15-times the amount charged to locals.
Municipal leaders — as well as lawmakers representing towns along the shoreline — have long defended their fees as necessary for the maintenance and upkeep of their beaches, which are otherwise funded by local property taxes.
As a result of that opposition, previous efforts to address beach fees by limiting what towns can charge have failed to gain traction in Hartford.
Gov. Ned Lamont — whose hometown of Greenwich requires non-residents to pay upwards of $50 a day to access its four public beaches — has yet to weigh in on the bill. In a state
ment Thursday evening, a spokesman said the governor’s office would monitor the debate over the latest bill.
“Connecticut’s experience during COVIE highlighted the importance of public access to outdoor recreational opportunities for all our state’s residents,” said the spokesman, Adam Joseph. “As a result of the pandemic, our administration funded new bus routes from train stations to State beaches to make it easier for people to enjoy Connecticut’s coast.”
In testimony submitted to the Planning and Development Committee, Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo called the town’s fee structure for non-residents “fair and necessary,” and that additional capacity limits set at its beaches are driven by public safety concerns.
“If we truly believe in local autonomy, then bills such as this conflict with this long held belief and tradition,” Camillo said.
He added that “to demand and mandate that we lower fees would amount to basically asking our town’s residents to subsidize non-resident usage.”
The idea of capping fees at public beaches has drawn support from prominent civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union, who argue that burdensome fees are another form of discrimination used to keep poor and non-white visitors from swimming in beaches and public pools.
“Although racial discrimination in beach access is typically associated with the de jure segregation of southern beaches, Connecticut has its own history of pervasive discrimination,” said Jess Zaccagnino, policy counsel for the ACLU of Connecticut, in testimony submitted to the committee. “Fair beach access is an issue that has haunted Connecticut for too long, with restrictive policies that are grounded in politics and discrimination.”
Capacity issues at Connecticut’s larger state beaches in recent years have added to the debate, with advocates arguing that many Connecticut residents are left with nowhere else to go once the parking lots fill up at beaches like Hammonasset and Sherwood Island on hot summer days.
State officials have attributed the surge in park attendance to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the Passport to Parks Program, which eliminated park entrance fees for Connecticut residents in 2018. Opponents of the bill noted that the state still charges entrance fees of $20 or more to out-of-state residents to park at more popular parks during the summer.
Kavros Degraw said that she and other members of the committee hopes to gauge the feedback from the public and town officials on Friday to gauge whether the lawmakers have a greater appetite for addressing the issue this legislative session.