By John Burton
SANDY HOOK – The National Park Service’s rate increase proposal is not sitting well with local state and federal lawmakers.
The National Park Service (NPS) is seeking public input into its plan to increase the parking and camping fees at Gateway National Recreation Area at Sandy Hook and at Jacob Riis Park, Far Rockaway, Queens, New York. In addition, camping fees would increase at the park service’s Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, and Fort Wadsworth Park, Staten Island, New York. Those rates would increase from $20 to $30 starting in 2015.
Plans call for the parking rates at Sandy Hook to increase to $20 in 2017 from the current $15 per vehicle per day; $100 per season, from its current $75; increase to $50 per oversize car per day; and $200 per oversize car per season, for Sandy Hook commencing in 2017.
Gateway National Recreation Area at Sandy Hook doesn’t charge an entrance fee; the charge is for parking spaces.
The park service last raised the parking rates at Sandy Hook in 2012, with daily vehicle rates going from $10 to the current $15.
The NPS conducted a public input session from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday Jan. 5, at the Fort Hancock Chapel, on the northern end of the Sandy Hook park, according to Jennifer Nersesian, Gateway superintendent.
That session, said park service spokesman Daphne Yun, was on a particularly cold and blustery evening and resulted in two members of the public joining U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. and two area reporters as National Park Service representatives offered a PowerPoint presentation on why the service was seeking the increase.
Monday’s session was the only one scheduled for Sandy Hook but the public can continue to offer its comments by way of email or written submissions through January, according to Yun.
The rate increases, Nersesian said in an interview with The Two River Times on Dec. 19, were necessary “to maintain and improve the quality of the services that we’re providing to our visitors.”
“Look, it would be a 100 percent increase in five years,” objected state Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-13).
“It doesn’t sound like a lot of money to a lot of people,” O’Scanlon noted, “but for a lot of lower income people it is.”
“This is getting a little outrageous,” said state Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-11), in a statement released in December. “Residents who enjoy the shore, and specifically Sandy Hook, shouldn’t be saddled with constantly escalating fees. These residents deserve better.”
“These are public parks and we want to keep them as accessible as possible for people of every income level,” O’Scanlon added.
Pallone, a Democrat, whose 6th Congressional district includes the Sandy Hook park, was an opponent to the 2012 rate increase and again opposes this plan. In an email response to request for comment, Pallone said, “I have always been a advocate for the preservation and upkeep of Sandy Hook, but I do not support asking hardworking New Jersey families to fork over money in order to spend time together at one of our nation’s national parks.”
When the NPS sought the 2012 rate increase it was met with criticisms that it would disproportionately impact state residents of more modest means who traveled to Sandy Hook for an affordable day of sun, sand and surf during the summer season.
“We’re certainly sensitive to how people feel about that,” Nersesian answered. “We’re a national park and we’re here for everybody, accessible to everybody.”
The fee, she noted, is for parking at the locations approximately 3,000 spaces, regardless of the number of passengers in the vehicle. And as such, she continued, for an average family that makes Sandy Hook’s rates competitive or even less than other area sites, which charge by the head. Senior rates would remain half price and, as has always been the case, there is no charge for walking or bicycling into the park.
Fees for parking, admittance and camping are not “at all uncommon in the national park system,” Nersesian pointed out.
Currently 131 NPS facilities are considering entrance and/or parking rate increases, according to Yun.
She explained the last fee increase was used to upgrade campgrounds, shoreline monitoring, docking repairs and maintenance. The additional funds will be earmarked for operating the webcam at the site’s lighthouse (the oldest continuing operating one on the eastern seaboard); work on the multipurpose path that runs just about the entire 7-mile length of the park; and a plan to make available online a collection of oral histories related to the park, among other services and amenities.
In the feedback the NPS has received so far, “there are concerns about the fees,” Nersesian acknowledged last month. On the other hand, she and park officials have been “Hearing from some people who support the rate increase because they want to see the quality of service maintained there,” Nersesian added.
The fear for Pallone is that a rate increase might negatively impact attendance and the park has been an important economic force for the area, drawing in tourists. “I want to see the park continue to encourage tourism, create recreational opportunities and serve as an economic driver for the local economy,” his email stated.
A better plan, O’Scanlon offered, might be to increase rates on a smaller, steady rate, instead of waiting for a number of years and then presenting a big jump. “That might be something that we should look at,” he said.
Sen. Joseph M. Kyrillos (R-13) suggested as a cost-saving measure the NPS look at spinning off Sandy Hook from the Gateway park group, believing it could be self-sufficient. “I think Sandy Hook would be infinitely better off,” he said.
Sandy Hook, and the historic former military installation, Fort Hancock, is a barrier peninsula located in Middletown facing Sandy Hook Bay on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. It has been part of the National Park System since the U.S. Congress created the Gateway National Recreation Area in the early1970s.
