Parking Restrictions Eyed for Montauk’s Downtown

On the heels of the plan to expand paid parking to spaces adjacent to downtown Montauk’s ocean beaches, the East Hampton Town Board discussed recommendations to introduce parking restrictions to four municipal lots in the hamlet.

Councilman David Lys delivered the recommendations at the board’s meeting at the Montauk Library on Tuesday, February 11, which he said emerged from discussions among the board and with the Police Department and the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee.

The municipal lot north of Main Street and bordered by South Euclid Avenue and South Embassy Street abuts the rear entrance of Montauk Chemists, the pharmacy that will open on Main Street in the near future. It is also adjacent to the police substation and a public restroom, and abuts the Hampton Jitney stop on South Euclid Avenue.

Presently, the limit is two hours for all spaces, except for those with a valid town parking permit, in which case there is no limit.

“If you go down there right now,” Lys said, “you can see that there’s still snow on many of the cars parked there, some with tires that are flatter than normal, which means they’ve been parked there close to 72 hours, if not longer.”

The recommendation is to limit parking in the five spaces nearest the Main Street businesses to 30 minutes. The remaining spaces would have a two-hour limit, or 72 hours for those with a valid town parking permit.

The lot at South Euclid Avenue and South Edison Street, also north of Main Street, is the largest municipal lot in the hamlet and is behind several Main Street businesses. The hamlet’s post office is across the lot on South Euclid Avenue. Here, the recommendation is the same, a mix of 30-minute and two-hour spaces, the former nearest to alleys leading to Main Street and the latter allowing up to 72 hours with a town permit. Spaces along the right of way on the south side of South Euclid Avenue would also be limited to two hours.

“All this is to allow businesses to be able to have turnover, very similar to the time frames that we have in the Amagansett parking lot, but also to not allow for any abuse of our parking locations,” Lys said. “Currently, there are a couple of cars there that still have snow on them — they haven’t moved.”

Adjacent to that lot and to the east is the hamlet’s newest municipal lot, where there are presently no restrictions. Here, spaces would also have a two-hour limit, with no restrictions for those with a town parking permit. The spaces abutting the lot on the South Euclid Avenue right of way would also have a two-hour limit.

In the lot south of Main Street, bordered by South Embassy Street and South Elmwood Avenue, spaces would have a two-hour designation, or 72 hours with a town parking permit.

“The time frames were to mimic what we already have in the code” for Amagansett’s municipal lot, which is also used by residents who take the Hampton Jitney, which stops nearby on that hamlet’s Main Street, Lys said. There, 30-minute spaces were added closest to the Main Street businesses, the bulk of the spaces have a two-hour limit and 72-hour parking was designated for spaces in the rear of the lot.

Finally, South Erie Avenue, which runs parallel to Montauk Highway and is north of the businesses along South Euclid Avenue, and which abuts a soccer field and a launching ramp serving Fort Pond, is mostly used for parking, including by taxi and Uber drivers who sometimes sleep in their vehicles. There are presently no parking restrictions. The recommendation is to prohibit overnight parking there.

Board members were generally supportive of the recommendations, though it was suggested that opinion be solicited from the business community.

The new restrictions will be subject to a public hearing before they can be enacted by resolution.