By Emily Schopfer
FAIR HAVEN – Many local schools have been back in session for about a month now. For Fair Haven officials, that means revisiting an issue that sparked controversy in June: the parking dispute between the borough and neighboring Red Bank Regional High School (RBR) in Little Silver.
While the parking dispute has been going on for years, it peaked in June, when Fair Haven Borough enforced a one-day ‘No Parking’ rule June 18 on Cambridge Avenue, a residential road. The road runs perpendicular to RBR, which held its graduation ceremony on campus that day. Cambridge Avenue is one of the handful of Fair Haven roads frequently used by RBR student drivers.
Residents of the affected streets, which include Cambridge, Oxford and Harrison avenues, Rutgers Drive and Harvard and Princeton roads, told online news source Red Bank Green that this feud dates back to the 2020 pandemic. At that time, Fair Haven residents began noticing an increase in students driving themselves or being dropped off, likely to avoid busing during the COVID-19 outbreak. This resulted in blocked driveways, speeding, property damage and safety concerns, according to residents.
RBR has about 233 student-designated parking spots on campus, but over 600 students between its senior and junior classes. To allot parking fairly, the school instituted a permit-based parking system. The school grants parking permits to seniors first, then opens the remaining permits to juniors and younger students.
This system, however, leaves many students who drive to school but cannot park on campus with little to no choice but to park on neighboring residential streets off school property.
To resolve this issue before the start of the new school year, the borough adopted an ordinance Aug. 17 restricting street parking to three hours between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. on school days. The ordinance extends to both sides of the streets and includes Cambridge, Oxford, Harrison, Rutgers, Harvard and Princeton. The ordinance also adds a new stop sign on Heights Terrace, at the intersection of Heights Terrace and Hillcrest Road.
RBR has made it clear that the school’s jurisdiction is limited to its campus. In an announcement posted to RBR’s website soon after graduation, Patrick Noble, the district board of education president, said: “The position of Red Bank Regional High School remains that student drivers parking off campus in Fair Haven is currently lawful and beyond our jurisdiction. In the absence of a parking ordinance that states otherwise, our students have the right to park on roads near the high school.”
“Students and families have been informed of the new parking restrictions on certain streets in Fair Haven,” Noble said Sept. 24. “Students have also been reminded to abide by traffic rules and be courteous when driving through surrounding neighborhoods.”
RBR will continue to utilize the permit-based parking system, Noble said, and “permit parking will be monitored throughout the school year to ensure the most effective allocation of our limited number of parking spaces, including the reallocation of unused parking permits.”
Cathy Myrum, a Fair Haven resident who lives on one of the residential streets near RBR, told the borough council during the Aug. 17 meeting that she has not observed cars from the school parking on her street. She was concerned that the ordinance included streets that are not experiencing parking issues and wondered whether it could be limited to affected streets.
Fair Haven borough administrator Christopher York explained that the ordinance includes several nearby streets to prevent the problem from being relocated rather than resolved. He said during the June one-day parking ban on Cambridge Avenue, which sees the most parking disputes, people began parking their cars on neighboring Fair Haven streets. If the ordinance included only a few nearby streets, “It doesn’t solve the problem; it pushes the problem to other residents,” York said.
York also acknowledged how the ordinance could affect residents on those streets, which is why the borough chose a three-hour limit instead of a total parking ban.
Myrum said the ban, regardless, does impact residents “in quite a big fashion,” not just for them, but for any guests they have.
Mayor Josh Halpern said Myrum’s concern is why the borough decided against a permit system. Regardless, “every action has a reaction,” he said, and the borough will take feedback and adjust as needed.
Hopefully, “this isn’t forever,” council member Tracy Cole said at the Aug. 17 meeting.
“Maybe the school will come up with their own solution which will eliminate all of this inconvenience for our residents,” Elizabeth M. Koch, council president, said. RBR’s Noble said he has not heard of any issues so far of students struggling to find parking in the new school year, since the new ordinance went into effect. “Students and families were informed of the new parking ordinance over the summer as part of back-to-school preparations so they would have time to prepare accordingly and not be blindsided by the Fair Haven parking restrictions on the first days of school,” he added. “That said, the RBR administration will be actively monitoring student parking as the school year progresses and more students become able to drive.”
This article originally appeared in the October 1-7, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
