One Community. One Coastline. A Fairer Beach Access System for Year-Round East End Residents.
Community Petition Organized By Year-Round East End Residents

Zara Beard, East Hampton Resident

Maria Lavezzo, Shelter Island Resident

Jamie Diamond, Southampton Resident

Petition Recipients

This petition is respectfully addressed to East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen, Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore, Southampton Village Mayor William Manger Jr., and the elected boards, trustees, and municipal leaders of participating East End communities.

We urge these officials to work together to explore the creation of an East End Year-Round Resident Beach Access Pass for verified year-round residents.

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We, the undersigned, call on the towns, villages, and municipalities of the East End to explore the creation of an East End Year-Round Resident Beach Access Pass.

The East End functions as one community. The people who live, work, volunteer, raise families, and sustain this region throughout the year should not be separated by a patchwork of municipal beach permits that often bear little relationship to how our community actually lives and operates.

In some cases, residents are unable to access a beach just minutes from home because it falls within a different municipal jurisdiction. For example, some beaches in Wainscott are governed by Southampton permit requirements despite being part of the broader East Hampton community. To year-round residents, these distinctions can feel less like meaningful boundaries and more like administrative lines on a map.

The reality is that the East End's municipal boundaries often bear little resemblance to how people actually live their lives. A resident of Bridgehampton may live within Southampton Town while being served by the East Hampton School District. Families routinely cross town, village, and district lines for work, school, volunteer activities, recreation, healthcare, and community events. The East End functions as an interconnected region, yet our beach permit system often treats neighboring residents as outsiders based solely on administrative boundaries.

At a time when so many aspects of our daily lives are shared, it is difficult to understand why year-round residents cannot enjoy our beaches together.

This petition is intended to support the people who are here in January, February, and March. The people sitting in traffic to get to work. The people volunteering at the firehouse. The teachers, nurses, landscapers, veterinarians, wildlife rehabilitators, restaurant workers, tradespeople, and small business owners who keep the East End running when there are no beach crowds at all.

The purpose of this proposal is not to expand access broadly, nor to increase access for tourists, short-term renters, or seasonal visitors. Rather, it is to acknowledge the unique contribution of the year-round community whose work, taxes, volunteerism, and patronage sustain the East End throughout the year.

We envision a voluntary regional permit program available to verified year-round residents of participating municipalities. Residents could provide proof of primary residency and purchase an additional regional permit granting access to participating municipal beaches and associated parking areas.

Eligibility could be verified through existing residency requirements, such as:

• New York driver's license showing a primary East End address
• Vehicle registration at that address
• Voter registration
• STAR exemption, tax records, utility bills, or a year-round lease

Any fee associated with the program should be kept affordable and structured to encourage participation by the year-round residents the program is intended to serve. We envision a permit cost of approximately $100 annually, with revenues distributed among participating municipalities to help support beach maintenance, lifeguards, environmental protection, and public services.

The goal is not to create a premium access program, but a practical and affordable benefit for the year-round residents who sustain the East End throughout the year.

The program could:

• Be available to all verified year-round residents of participating municipalities
• Exclude short-term renters, visitors, and seasonal residents
• Include an affordable annual fee
• Share revenue among participating municipalities
• Preserve local control while expanding access for the year-round community

The Hamptons already struggles with a sense of fragmentation between villages, hamlets, towns, seasonal residents, and year-round residents. A regional beach pass would be a small but meaningful step toward recognizing the East End as a shared community rather than a collection of separate jurisdictions.

Year-round residents support local businesses in the off-season. They serve on nonprofit boards, coach youth sports, staff our schools and hospitals, respond to emergencies, maintain our roads and landscapes, care for our wildlife, and help preserve the character of this place long after the summer season ends.

We are frequently asked to invest in our community because strong communities depend on participation. This petition simply asks that the community, in turn, recognize and invest in the people who support it year-round.

The East End's beaches are among its greatest public treasures. A regional resident pass would strengthen community connections, promote fairness, and acknowledge the reality that the people who live here year-round are part of one shared coastal community.

The question is simple:

If we live here together, work here together, support this community together, and help sustain it throughout the year, should we not also be able to enjoy its beaches together?

We respectfully urge our elected officials and municipal leaders to begin working together to explore a regional beach access program for verified year-round residents of the East End.