UH OH! New Jersey Beachfront Rebuilding vs. Beach Replenishment vs. Beach Fees!

Beaches in Rockaway are fee in the Summer?

 

yes. unless you need to park a car or pay for transportation... but its free to walk onto the beach and do beach things...

 

Agreed sir. Beach fees are unnecessary....the support for this argument is overwhelming when you look at the rest of the country and how they manage their beaches. I hope the bill passes.

 

I enjoyed reading your post until you ragged on the lifeguards- i pulled more people out of hurricane water in a day then you ever have, and if your response back is gonna be "Im a lifeguard too" then your just a scumbag to write off someone in your profession. Don't come back to Jersey your not welcome!

 

I stand corrected I guess. I use to surf Rockaway all the time and never paid any fees. Parked for free across from 90th st. Also surfed a couple other places and Montauk. Never saw fees. I parked on the dirt lot at Ditch Plains, no fees.
In Cali you pay $15. per day at State parks for parking, but no beach fees. You can buy an annual pass. Most towns don't charge to park.

 

Sorry if you misunderstood what I meant. I wasn't ragging the lifeguards. I am sure they didn't come up with the idea to have tiny flagged off swimming areas and to blow the whistle when people go past the shorebreak. That has been my experience in NJ.
Your welcome to experience the way it is here in Cali if you ever come out. Totally different. People can swim wherever they want, plenty of lifeguards here to deal with it.

 

You could say the same thing about highway tolls, which don't exist in about half of the other states.

 

I think we're gonna see the turnover from the older style shore cottages built in the 40's to newer style homes on pilings. Building codes will not allow for those ground level homes to be rebuilt the way they were. As far as subsidizing multi-million dollar homes though, it's not as prevalent as you might think. Alot of the nicer homes are typically secondary/vacation homes and are inelegible for FEMA money. And as far as the flood insurance goes, the reimbursement values are typically capped at 250k. The other factor is that the flood insurance is only required on properties securitized with mortgages. So in many cases the guy thats dropping 2 mill on a vacation home isn't required to have a mortgage (unless he can't afford it) and opts out of paying the for the flood insurance. I think you'd be surprised at the number of people with these mcmansions that suffered damages that are gonna take a loss on their house.

But back to the beach tag thing. Is it in ingrained in our culture so that many people just accept it? Yes. Do you receive some type of benefit from this service? Depends how you utilize the resource. Is there a way to circumvent the process? Yes, just surf before 10 or after 5 (when most people are working anyway). Plus there are a few unguarded beaches to go to. Can you compare this scenario equally to CA beaches. I say no because in CA you have year-round tourism dollars coming to your beaches and local economies. This can perhaps sustain a certain level of services without the beach tags. In NJ you have a much shorter tourism season and less of a monetary pool to sustain a similar level of resources, so beach tags can be justified in some way. If people thought that beach tags were a waste of money, they would go somewhere else and not come back year after year. One could also argue that paying $15 dollars to park is the same as paying for a tag, they're simply user fees.

 

you say "brainwashed" whereas I say, able to do simple math. NJ has 127 miles of coastline. Overlay the same distance to California and that gets you Border State park down by Tijuana up to about Seal Beach. Now, you take that whole swath in California, and count the population within about a four-hr driving distance (sorry, some more math for ya) and you got about 18m. Take that same 127 miles of NJ coast, and even with EXCLUDING Long Island, you have 30m+. Plus it being year-round in CA tramples as you pointed out, tramples your arguement even further. All that means is you have less of a concentration of beach goers since they can spread out their trips throughout the year, and also, NJ doesn't charge for access other than in the summer. Plenty of 80 degree + days in May, Sept and even Oct for you to enjoy the beach for "free". I can go on if you'd like....

 

Your just plain wrong Dave. Really, your trying to say you have more people going to more square footage of beach in NJ? Keep kidding yourself. You didn't make your argument very clear either.
Like I said, beach maintenance should already be paid for with your state taxes that come from a general fund or something, not a beach community charging for what should be free. And to further trample your argument, yes, California does YEAR ROUND maintenance with zero beach tags, unlike NJ which only has to maintain the beaches for 3-4 months. That means it requires LESS money for NJ Dave. But your a shining example of the problem with NJ.
Is it fair to charge the whole state? Sure is, it just requires a tiny bit from a bigger pool. Don't like it? Well I don't like my tax dollars going to Pakistan, or Egypt, but they do, but I digress...

 

Are you against all park user fees, public golf course fees, public parking lot fees etc? Whats wrong with making the actual USERS of a publicly funded amenity like a beach or park pay a slightly higher amount of the maintenance than the general public? I dont see anything wrong with state/local taxes providing some of the support (we all benefit to some extent from the economic activity provided by beaches and tourism, and then the direct users (beach goers) adding another layer of support since they have actually chosen to go use the beach.

Completely flat funded state tax support of beachs, especially beaches with expensive parking permit systems for non-owners, limited access beaches that (while technically open to the public) but where the amount of available parking or restrooms means the vast majorit of users are local property owners/renters seems to me a bit of a skewed funding mechanism.

 

first of all if u guys hate beach badges,dont go to protected beaches.maybe some of u kooks need lifegaurds on standby because u cant swim or idk..i dont go on beaches with lifegaurds,save me the trouble.dont want to deal with crowds and bennies go to an unprotected beach.beach replinishment is the standard for jersey.they destroy waves and create gnarly shorebreak.and one more thing.i say leave the seaside boardwalk just the way it is.the bennies wont be comin out messin up our beaches.i dont hang out on the boardwalk anyway im in the water...theres plenty of houses that need rebuild.they are donating all this money and the victims dont see a fukin dime!!cold hard truth.i remember the days u didnt see a surfer or sponger for weeks on end,back when i started.nowadays surfers are as common as used tampons on the beach.most of u kooks feel the need to record your session surfin 2 ft choppy blown out shytty conditions and then got the nerve to talk shyt about the wildlyfe crew with rave n colin using skis to do towats!!well while u kiddies were hiding in attics,my boys were down at the beach pullin into the heaviest barrels ever recorded off the northeast.so plz keep ya damn mouths shut

 

"There again, NC doesn't have close to the history of cronyism and corruption as NJ. Do NJ beachgoers ever think to look into the balance sheets and find out exactly where all that money is going?"

I think you hit the nail on the head. "Taxation without representation".

 

Sounds like the Mafia to me, but i'm sure that's all TV and movie stuff right? HAHA

 

The difference is the STATE of California owns Cal's beaches. In NJ the beaches are owned by the towns/municipalities. The State owned beaches like Island Beach State Park charge for parking, but you can walk right in if you want without a fee. Sandy Hook is owned by the Federal Government, and they charge for parking, but you can also walk into Sandy Hook for free. The beach fees by the towns have always been a cash grab.
Since the State of NJ is funding much of the repairs from Sandy, along with the Federal money, beaches in NJ should be transferred to ownership by the State and out of the towns control. Then then would be free. This would also limit the liability of the towns (which they are paranoid about for getting sued if someone drowns- hence the ridiculous roped off swimming areas with overzealous lifeguards).

 

again- beaches in NC are owned by the STATE, not the towns.

 

get pitted, so pitted.
Whabap.

 

I've spent alot of time in Delware. I prefer having to pay to get on the beach than to pay for that permit parking system they have in place. Or having to pay to park at IRI.