Higgins homeowners present summer report

SCARBOROUGH — When Higgins Beach homeowners complained last spring of the impact parking changes would have on their community, Town Manager Tom Hall had a counter-critique.

“It was all conjecture and opinion based. That’s no one’s fault, but that’s what it amounted to,” he said. “My comment was that we needed to surround ourselves with data and fact.”

The Higgins Beach Association, which claims to represent more than 80 percent of the homeowners in its area, has more than met that challenge. Last week, it presented a 93-page compendium of observations collected over the summer, complete with photos of surfers on city streets in various stages of undress and a DVD of parking violations on Bayview Avenue.

The group was set to meet with the Town Council Wednesday, after The Current’s deadline, to discuss its report. The meeting comes as the council prepares to do an off-season review of the parking situation at Higgins Beach.

Although the binder contains many of the familiar complaints – parking violations, vulgarity, public nudity and urination – one new wrinkle was added, which could lead to legal battles down the road.

According to the association, the roads in Higgins Beach are actually owned by the abutting property owners. The town, they claim, only owns an easement for “travel and activities incident to travel.”

“The town has a responsibility to restrict roadway use to travel-related activities,” reads the association’s review of Maine Case Law related to road easements.

According to the group, parking is an activity incident to travel. Loading or unloading “possessions” like, say, a surfboard, is not. Nor is “tail-gaiting,” which the group claims many people, primarily teens, do along Bayview Avenue, in the one-hour spots newly created this year by the Town Council. Several pictures show young people hanging around vehicles, in postures indicating no particular ambition to be elsewhere.

The group made no demands in its presentation, but the run-down of road law could be seen as laying a case.

“I am hopeful that our conversation does not devolve to that [a court case],” said Hall, who said a town attorney reviewed the association’s brief and found it to be “accurate” regarding Maine law. What has yet to be determined, he said, is if deed research will bear out claims that the town does not have ownership of Higgins neighborhood roadways.

“I think we’d vigorously defend that on the principle alone, which could have repercussions statewide, far beyond the personalities and issues of Higgins Beach,” said Hall.

Before it comes to that, however, there will be much to discuss.

The primary theme, in both the group’s formal observations and letters from homeowners and vacationers included in its submission, is overcrowding.

The allegation, made time and again, is that the reduction of price to $5 at the town-owned parking lot on Ocean Avenue, along with the new, free parking sports on Bayview Avenue, acted as a magnet to teens, surfers, casual beachgoers and dog walkers.

The latter, in particular, was blamed for four health advisories issued by Healthy Maine Beaches – on July 20 and 21, and Aug. 3 and 4 – advising that “swimming and water contact activities are not advised at this time.”

A similar warning, given for Aug. 17 and 18, was tied to heavy rains, which caused high bacteria counts coming from the Spurwink River. But, the association noted, the previous shutdowns had no cited cause, nor were advisories posted elsewhere in town.

“When the Spurwink River is not the source, the most likely source of contamination is dog feces,” the report concludes.

The report also claims that Higgins Beach was the only area in Scarborough where the endangered piping plover failed to nest this season, speculating human overcrowding as the cause. Meanwhile, David Vaillancourt, who leads a daily cleanup of Higgins Beach, is cited in the report as estimating a “500 percent increase” in litter.

Whether or not the $5 parking fee acted as a draw, town records do show that the Ocean Street lot filled to capacity on all but seven days in July.

Parking violations showed a dramatic increase, from 274 in 2010 to 463 this year, made perhaps more significant because the only legal parking, on Bayview Avenue, is limited to 12 spots.

Locals who kept track report that of cars parked in those spaces between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., “40 percent parked more than 90 minutes.”

In his own report to the council, Police Chief Robert Moulton pointed out that 71 of the 463 parking violations were written as a result of tips from local residents. Of those 71, said Moulton, 42 tips were attributed to a group of five residents, with half of those coming from a single person.

Despite the spike in parking problems, and a doubling of disturbances, including fights, domestic disputes and loud parties, from six to 13, other data points fell year-to-year.

Surfing violations fell from 10 in 2010 to two this year, while liquor violations as dropped, from 12 to three.

According to Hall, it may be next spring before the Town Council votes on changes to the parking policies in Higgins Beach, including a proposal, already permitted by state Department of Environmental Protection, to add roughly 20 more spots to the Ocean Street lot.

Meanwhile, the debate will rage over the impact of this year’s changes to the community.

“I was extremely disappointed,” wrote Barbara Stein, of Quebec, of this year’s pilgrimage to Higgins Beach, her 60^th.  “Between the honking of horns, slamming doors, dogs barking and heavy traffic – on weekends in particular, we no longer find the beach a relaxing environment for a vacation holiday.”