Select Board OK’s Seasonal Sticker Parking For Kent’s Point

ORLEANS – A pilot sticker parking program will go into effect at Kent’s Point this summer in an effort to address concerns about public overuse and environmental degradation.

 The select board unanimously voted March 25 to approve the program pending additional town counsel review. The program will require residents and non-residents to have a valid beach sticker in order to access the 20 public parking spaces on the property from June 15 through Sept. 15.

 “I guess I look at it as you’re not limiting the access,” Michael Herman of the select board said. “You’re technically not limiting it, right? People can buy stickers.”

 The proposal was brought to the select board by the conservation commission, which over the past two years has been exploring options for better protecting the 27-acre property. Commission Chair Drusy Henson told the board that the point, which was purchased by the town in 1988, is the most popular of the 16 publicly accessible conservation properties under the commission’s jurisdiction.

 In January 2024, the select board received a petition from residents and abutters to Kent’s Point raising concerns about public overuse of the property as well as adverse environmental impacts to the point. The petition was sent to the commission, which has custody of the property.

 The commission has since conducted an environmental and traffic assessment of the property in an effort to address the petitioners’ concerns. Henson said a traffic survey conducted by the Cape Cod Commission in the peak of summer in July 2024 found that a daily average of 165 cars visited the point during the week, a figure that came closer to 180 cars per day on the weekend.

 “I think the peak day was 250 cars,” she said.

 Meanwhile, the consulting firm LEC Environmental Services in February 2025 presented its environmental assessment of the property to the commission. Among the study’s recommendations were the installation of additional fencing to keep visitors on the point’s designated trails as well as additional signage directing people to stay on the trails and not to venture into undesignated areas. 

 Henson said that a number of measures have been taken at the property to help address environmental issues such as erosion, particularly in the area of the point's outer banks. The seasonal parking measures, she said, will hopefully further protect the property.

 “Limiting parking to sticker holders will help address the documented erosion, vegetation loss and trail damage on the property,” she said.

 Enforcement of stickered parking would be done by the Orleans Police Department, Henson said, noting that violators could be subject to fines.

 But plans to manage public parking and access to the property have been challenged by others in the community. In September 2024, the commission received a counter-petition from residents seeking what Henson called a “formal denial” of the original petition. 

 Orleans resident Karl Oakes has been among the most vocal opponents to plans to revise the point’s management plan. During the public comment portion of the select board’s March 25 meeting, he questioned former Town Counsel Michael Ford’s research into what he saw as potential legal issues that plans to enact stickered parking might present.

 Oakes said that unlike town beaches and landings, Kent’s Point has a broader interest to the general public beyond residents of Orleans. Because of that, he cited legal precedent that the state legislature should have “final jurisdiction” over the status of the property, not the select board. 

 “In my judgment, forcing people to choose between paying to park in the lot or walking the long distance from the nearest available parking spot is an undeniable interference with their easement to use the land,” he said.

 Oakes asked that Murphy, Hess, Toomey and Lehane, the town’s new legal counsel, look into whether all potential legal issues regarding the Kent’s Point plan have been “sufficiently explained to the select board.” If not, he asked that any vote on the matter be postponed.

 In a follow up email, Oakes said he believes that Ford’s analysis of the situation at Kent’s Point “did not actually grapple with any of the core legal questions.”

 “Why that happened is open to speculation, but the bottom line is that it has left the select board and the Orleans public without a clear understanding of what we're doing and to what extent it may lead to us being sued in the future and having to return collected fees at the 12 percent prejudgment interest rate,” he wrote.

 Town counsel did not reply to Oakes’ request, which was submitted to Town Manager Kim Newman, in time for the select board’s March 25 meeting. But Board Chair Kevin Galligan said that he still supported the sticker proposal subject to future counsel review.

 “I know personally I have no concern supporting this, even based on some legal questions that have been made,” he said. “But that’s legal to legal. That’s how I see this.”

 Mefford Runyon of the select board also noted that while passive recreation is an allowable use at the point, it’s secondary to its function as conservation land.

 “Passive recreation, which has sort of an incomplete definition, is an allowed use in conservation land,” he said. “But it’s not weighted equally. The purpose of the purchase was conservation, not recreation.”

 Henson said the commission is treating the coming summer season as a “pilot” for the sticker program, and that the results will be evaluated after September.

 Not included in the plan voted on by the select board last week was management of dogs on the property. In their petition, residents also addressed concerns about aggressive dogs that have caused injury to some on the property in the past as well as the failure of some to clean up after their pets.

 “It’s definitely on the radar, but it’s not something we considered for this,” Henson said, noting that the town’s leash law applies at Kent’s Point as it does to all other conservation properties.