Second phase of Public Shoreline Access Management Plan to begin

November 18, 2024, WAKEFIELD — The R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) and its partners Rhode Island Sea Grant and the Narragansett Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (NBNERR) has embarked on the next phase of development of the Public Shoreline Access Management Plan via meetings with public access experts and decisionmakers.

The draft document outlining the goals for the plan is also available on the CRMC website. The information contained in the outline is based on the results of the needs assessment completed earlier in 2024 through funding the CRMC secured from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In the coming months, the team will be working on the next phase – paid for with a grant under the Inflation Reduction Act – gathering municipalities, state and other agencies, NGOs, and other career public access experts, to share ideas, make connections and devise on the ground solutions to some of the barriers to shoreline public access identified in the needs assessment.

For additional information and resources pertaining to shoreline public access, as well as slides pertaining to the needs assessment, go to - www.crmc.ri.gov/publicaccess.html, as well as www.shoreline-ri.com.