CT beach-access bills in the General Assembly set to fail
Suburban members of the General Assembly have apparently succeeded again in derailing efforts to force Connecticut beach-side towns to make it easier for out-of-towners to enjoy the sand and sun along Long Island Sound.
One bill that would have prohibited communities that receive state support for roads from restricting access to parking near public beaches and recreational and scenic areas, was massively amended behind closed doors in the legislative Transportation Committee - on its deadline day - and turned into a study of the issue.
And the co-chairwoman of the Planning and Development Committee said Thursday that related legislation, which would prohibit beach cities and towns from charging access fees higher than 50 percent of those paid by residents, will die without a vote on Friday, during its last scheduled meeting prior to its legislative deadline.
For state Rep. Roland Lemar, co-chairman of the Transportation Committee, it was another defeat to one of his legislative goals in recent years.
“Based upon advice from committee members on both sides of the aisle, instead of proceeding with the bill as originally drafted, we have before the committee a study bill,” Lemar said to the panel. The legislation is now nearly identical to a bill that won approval in the legislative Planning and Development Committee last year, but died without a vote in either the House or Senate.
If approved by both chambers before the midnight, May 4 deadline, it would require the state Office of Policy and Management, along with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, to jointly study the issues of access to beaches and parks adjacent to marine and tidal waters owned by both the state and municipalities.
“I believe it will get us closer to the point where we each understand the respective differences from some of our beach communities, but the shared-access goals that I think are owed to every Connecticut resident,” Lemar told committee members during a hybrid meeting in which some lawmakers met in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford and others tuned-in virtually.
“Particularly as almost every one of these beaches on the Long Island Sound receives substantial state and federal aid that is paid by every taxpayer, I believe it shouldn’t be that hard for a child from Sprague or Hartford or Waterbury or any one of the over 100 towns in the state who do not have access to the beach, to get to one over the course of a summer,” Lemar said. “I respect that ideas at proffered earlier in the session do not share the support of members of this committee at this time. I wish they did.”
Lemar noted that a prior study found that 80 percent of shoreline properties are privately owned. Public access along those properties is limited to the land between low tide and the high-tide line.
While most testimony opposed the original legislation during a recent committee hearing on the proposal, cirting very limited parking, the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut supported the bill as a way to confront the state’s history of racial discrimination in public spaces.
“I very strongly believe that communities including the community that I represent, have been put on notice that the legislature is watching this issue,” said state Sen. Will Haskell, D-Westport, co-chairman of the committee. “Let’s be honest, the community that I represent, where you have to pay nearly $800 if you’re an out-of-town resident seeking a season pass, that’s unaffordable.”
State Sen. Steve Meskers, D-Greenwich, joined Republicans in opposing the revised bill, which next heads to the floor of the House.
State Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vehey, D-Fairfield, co-chairwoman of the Planning and Development Committee, said that the study bill in Lemar’s committee would investigate the issue of beach parking rates as well. “Rep. Lemar has been a champion of this issue and because the Transportation Committee was already moving a study bill forward, we made the decision not to take action,” said McCarthy Vehey, who is also on the Transportation Committee.
In recent testimony, suburban residents from throughout the state spoke against both bills. Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo submitted testimony to the Planning Committee saying the town’s fees for nonresidents “are both fair and necessary as we maintain our parks and beaches without state or federal assistance.”
“To demand and mandate that we lower fees would amount to basically asking our town's residents to subsidize non-resident usage,” Camillo said.
Last year, Greenwich charged $40 per car, plus $9 per person, per visit. Fairfield charged non-residents about $250 for the season and Stamford sold beach access to out-of-towners for $292. Westport charged non-residents a whopping $775 for the season.
Stamford’s Board of Representatives recently drafted a resolution urging Mayor Caroline Simmons’ administration and state lawmakers who represent the city to oppose both proposals in the General Assembly.
“These are decisions that we as a board have hammered out with excruciating detail over the last number of years,” Republican city Rep. David Watkins said about Stamford’s parking permit fees. The legislative proposals in Hartford would “wipe away all of that work,” he said.
“I'm not arguing here what the right rules ought to be for fees for nonresidents. I'm not arguing here what kind of residential parking permit program we should or shouldn't have,” Watkins said this seek as he pitched the resolution to a Board of Representatives committee. “What I am arguing here is that it is vital that our administration and our legislative delegates say to Hartford: ‘This is local business. This is business that we in our city are equipped to handle and will handle in an appropriate fashion.’”
Simmons didn’t submit testimony for either proposal. But Lauren Meyer, Simmons’ director of policy and legislative affairs, said she had told members of Stamford’s delegation that the administration was concerned about the language as drafted in both bills.
“I think, as Rep. Watkins indicated, the idea of taking away the local control for these items was concerning to us,” Meyer said. “We want to make sure everyone has access to our beaches, but … we're aware of the congestion issues, the parking issues that exist in these areas.”
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