Sunrise Park Beachfront Parking’s DOA

WILDWOOD CREST – A standing-room-only crowd greeted Wildwood Crest commissioners, Feb. 19, with strong opposition to a proposed parking lot which would have used a section of Sunrise Park. 
No one favored the project and residents convinced commissioners to abandon the idea.
“The parking on Sunrise Park is dead,” Crest Mayor Don Cabrera said, after two hours of comments.
Deputy Mayor Joyce Gould took down renderings of the proposed lot which had sat on easels in the front of the room. “This is the death of the parking lot,” Cabrera said, as the crowd cheered.
“I’m not in favor of putting parking on those lots. I think it’s green open space. You go all the way up the coastline…you’re not going to see a lot of areas that have green open space,” Cabrera said, adding that parking could create a hazard for children playing in the adjacent playgrounds and park. “It could be unsafe.”
Necessary Evil?
Commissioner David Thompson, in charge of public safety, argued the benefits of adding parking, calling it a “necessary evil.”
“There’s been a lot of requests by residents to get more parking,” Thompson said. “It’s the biggest problem we have.”
The idea to add parking to Sunrise Park was born from consistent residents’ complaints about a lack of parking in the Crest, said Thompson.
“Before everyone starts jumping down Mr. Thompson’s throat here,” said former police chief Joseph McGrath, who retired Dec. 31, jumped in. “Mr. Thompson and I had talked about this last year as an option that worked. I’m not saying it’s the answer. I’m saying it’s good overflow spots for the overflow we’re getting.”
Grassy Open Space
Sunrise Park is a three-square-block, grassy, beachfront park between Rambler and Lotus roads, where recreational renovations are about to get underway (http://bit.ly/2SS3kzZ).
McGrath added he did not agree with the proposed location of the lot within the Sunrise Park confines. The former chief was present because he was honored earlier by Capt. Robert Lloyd, for his retirement after 25 years with the police department.
Park on Former Library Lot?
Gould said she agrees that parking is a necessity but offered the lot which holds the vacant Crest library’s former building as an alternative to Sunrise Park.
“We don’t know what we’re going to do with that. We don’t need that building to do anything with. My thought was always to take that down and put up a parking lot,” Gould said. “We are the only town on the shoreline that does not have beach parking. Even Avalon and Stone Harbor have beach parking.”
Thompson favors renovating the old library instead to create a senior center.
Are Beach Tags the Solution?
Joe Tenaglia, Jr., owner of the Jolly Roger Motel, proposed that the implementation of beach tags in Wildwood Crest, common in many other Jersey shore towns, would solve whatever parking problems people were having.
“It’s a fact that we have a free beach and have a lot of moochers who come on the island. That’s perfectly fine, but just let them pay. All this parking conversation is over and extinct and moot as long as you bring up a beach fee. That is the real issue in Wildwood Crest,” Tenaglia said.
Gould agreed. “This town is in desperate need of a beach fee. You get a beach fee you get rid of all the (parking) meters, because you’d make all that income. People would have a place to park. And then, you’d get rid of — excuse me — the riffraff. And we have a lot of riffraff,” she said.
Neighbors’ Concerns
Resident Steve del Monte, of Myrtle Road across the street from the proposed lot, spoke of concerns nearby property owners have.
“I see what goes on on the beach. It’s Solo cup city. And they’ve been consuming,” del Monte said. “There’s numerous families that live on Myrtle and they have kids.”
Fear for Children
Other residents spoke of their concerns with having a lot so close to a park, where children would be playing and might chase a ball behind a car recklessly backing out.
Many talked about the different ways they like to enjoy the grassy beachfront space.
“The song wasn’t pave a dilapidated building and put up a parking lot. It was pave paradise and put up a parking lot,” del Monte said. “It is paradise.”