Non-residents may soon be able to launch boats out of Gull Pond
Town officials are considering a code change that would allow non-resident boat trailers at Norman E. Klipp Park, also known as Gull Pond, in Greenport.
The change would come with a fee.
“The park has ample parking. It’s one of the few places that we have parking and when we did this law last year, we decided to take out all non-residents and see what the impact is,” said Town Board member Jill Doherty at Tuesday’s work session. “As we’ve seen, we’ve had an impact.”
She proposed doubling the non-resident beach permit fee to allow for ramp access.
But the prospect of a $600 permit seemed too restrictive for Town Supervisor Scott Russell. Non-residents currently pay $300 for a permit to park at town beaches.
“The presumption is that $300 gets you the benefits of what a resident beach sticker would get you,” he said. “We’re already restricting non-residents to just one ramp. I would have a hard time saying we are going to make a boat ramp more accessible to non-residents and, by the way, charge $600 for it. That’s a substantial amount of money.”
Instead, Ms. Doherty suggested following the lead of Riverhead Town, where out-of-towners pay $200 for a beach sticker and an additional $75 for a boat ramp permit.
“I think that’s reasonable,” Mr. Russell said.
