Beach parking continues to rile up Glencoe residents

Glencoe beach neighbors are demanding that Village officials do more to address their concerns about parking, airing complaints to Village trustees during their recent meeting.

Trustees spent more than two hours of the four-hour meeting on Thursday, May 21, listening to neighbors, who created a standing-room-only Village Hall council chambers to share their frustrations with parking and cleanliness of the beach and nearby park.

The meeting came just a month after the Village Board passed several ordinances aimed at addressing parking issues. At that same meeting, two residents said more needs to be done.

Neighbors blame nonresidents

About 20 people spoke, some passionately, during public comment, with the majority of them identifying themselves as neighbors to Glencoe Beach.

They all stated their belief that nonresidents are causing the issues.

Resident Carrie Rose told a story of seeing a group of people leaving behind “substantial amounts” of trash and noticing their out-of-town vehicle sticker.

She said a lack of parking enforcement may draw nonresidents to Glencoe’s beach.

“Glencoe residents themselves often struggle to access the beach they fund,” Rose added. “As a west side resident, it is not practical for my family to walk to the beach on hot summer days. Yet during busy periods, parking availability becomes so limited that we frequently choose not to go as well.”

Beach neighbor Maggie Shapack said among the traffic issues she’s seen are “streets overwhelmed with congestion, cars parked in front of hydrants, blocked driveways, vehicles obstructing pedestrian walkways, garbage thrown from cars and traffic so severe that emergency access becomes compromised.”

She added she doesn’t want the beach restricted to nonresidents but rather more enforcement and management of the parking.

“We don’t want our streets commercialized with designated parking spots,” Shapack said. “We are asking for seasonal parking restrictions and reserved parking so Glencoe residents themselves can meaningfully enjoy and access the lakefront their tax dollars help maintain.”

Adam Waxner, who said he also lives near the beach, said he feels the issue is about safety, not restricting access.

“None of us want to preclude access to the beach,” he said. “We want to keep our families safe. My kids play on my driveway. People are parking outside. I certainly don’t want to invite more parking along Beach Road.”

At times during public comment, emotions ran high, with some speakers going over their three-minute time limit, neighbors occasionally talking over the board during discussions, and Village President Howard Roin asking multiple times for audience members to hold applause, a standard rule often stated prior to public comment.

Some who spoke, however, opposed parking restrictions, including Steve Varick, who serves on the Glencoe Park District’s Lakefront Advisory Group and described himself as a “daily user of the beach.”

He believes that most of the congestion is not caused by nonresidents, but rather on weekends with warm weather, which he said brings more people to the beach.

Varick voiced support for the park district and village’s “incremental” approach by making some changes and seeing how effective they are.

“Approximately half of the users of our beach are nonresidential, and I would not want to limit the use of the beach to residents only,” he said.

Breaking down parking, enforcement

Prior to public comment, trustees heard a presentation from Public Works Director Monica Sarna and Public Safety Director Sean Loughran about the challenges of parking near Glencoe Beach.

Sarna said Village staff analyzed Glencoe’s surrounding communities to see how they handle parking, and found little consistency between enforcement. She said Kenilworth most resembles Glencoe in that it has no parking lot for its beach, but the nearby streets are a mix of those with and without restrictions.

Loughran presented data on both beach usage and public safety. He said, according to the Glencoe Park District, in 2025, Glencoe Beach saw 21,800 visitors, which included just under 11,200 residents and more than 10,600 nonresidents.

When it comes to enforcing parking restrictions on Glencoe streets, Loughran said doing so comes with challenges. Community service officers handle parking enforcement, he said, and they have license plate readers that can check to see if the resident has a permit or not.

Loughran said Glencoe used to offer vehicle stickers but the program was discontinued about five years ago. Because of that, he said officers can’t tell just by looking at a vehicle if it belongs to a resident or not. And while both public safety and community service officers have license plate readers, they don’t work the same way.

Public safety officers primarily use their license plate readers to determine if a vehicle’s plate is associated with a wanted suspect or a missing person, data which is not accessible to the community service officers.

As a result, Loughran said if they gave parking enforcement responsibilities to public safety officers, it would create challenges.

“I (as a public safety officer) have to run the license plate (on a potential nonresident vehicle) and then I would have to go into and access a share point and look up that license plate and compare it to 4,900 other permitted vehicles in Glencoe” to confirm if it belongs to a resident or not, Loughran said. “And I would submit that I don’t think that that’s necessarily a good use of our personnel’s time.”

He added that he believes restricting parking near the beach would have unintended consequences throughout the rest of the village, as both he and Sarna noted that there are already few parking opportunities within Glencoe.

“If we restrict those vehicles in that particular area, they will go to the surrounding areas, or they will indeed go into those (business district) lots,” which would impact an already parking-strapped area, he said.

“We ultimately want to be effective,” Loughran said. “But we want to be careful and meaningful in our delivery and we want to make sure that we can deliver what the public mandates.”

What’s next?

Following public comment, trustees thanked all of those who spoke up and assured the residents that their concerns are being heard.

Roin said the Village has not yet had the chance to evaluate the changes that were made at the April board meeting, and said he was in favor of seeing how effective they were before making any further changes to parking and enforcement.

“I think we should give those procedures a chance to see if they work,” he said. “I think they will work.”

Trustee Gary Ruben spoke directly to the neighbors and said he understood their concerns, especially surrounding safety.

“It’s a tough issue. So please, don’t be mad at us,” Ruben said. “We are genuinely listening to you, as Howard says, and we’re genuinely listening. And we take all this very seriously. We just might not come out the exact same way.”

Trustee Dudley Onderdonk agreed with what he called an “incremental” approach to the parking concerns.

“I like incremental changes toward a goal,” he said. “And I think the village president’s proposal for these incremental changes and then being data driven is very important to figure out where we’re going.”

He also voiced support for working with the Glencoe Park District, which Roin said will be happening.

“We have more work to do,” Onderdonk said. “We’ll need to think about this not only from a legal perspective, but from a human perspective.”

The Record is a nonprofit, nonpartisan community newsroom that relies on reader support to fuel its independent local journalism.

Become a member of The Record to fund responsible news coverage for your community.

Already a member? You can make a tax-deductible donation at any time.