SCARBOROUGH – After months of hearings and deliberation, the Scarborough Town Council last month approved new parking rules for the streets bordering Higgins Beach.

Now, less than a month later, the council will at its Feb. 16 meeting revisit that decision, which, among other things, banned parking year-round on Bayview Avenue, except for designated spaces.

Before voting on the matter at their Jan. 19 meeting, councilors worked through nearly a dozen amendments before finally approving a parking plan that permits a 90-foot, five-minute drop-off zone on the ocean side of Bayview Avenue and a dozen one-hour parking spots from the end of the drop-off zone to Morning Street, where parking will be permitted between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. year-round. From Sept. 15 to May 1, the one-hour time limit in those spot will not be in effect.

Councilor Carol Rancourt, however, said after reflecting on the decision she feels the council made a mistake in taking away off-season parking on the side streets near the beach, which had been permitted prior to the Jan. 19 meeting. In particular, she is focused on the area between Morning and Vesper streets.

“After all those amendments, when I got back home after the meeting, I realized I had voted to ban (off-season parking),” Rancourt said. “I want to relook at the off-season parking. That’s what I want to reconsider. That’s my focus.”

Rancourt said she does not have a definite plan in her mind, but would like to see additional parking available, especially along Bayview Avenue.

“I would like to see parking from Morning Street to Vesper Street which we completely banned,” she said. “I would like to see that have winter parking.”

She said she would also like to revisit parking on side streets.

Rancourt said she has not talked to the other councilors about reconsidering the Higgins Beach parking issue.

At the Jan. 19 meeting, two of the councilors, Mike Wood and Karen D’Andrea, made their thoughts clear about parking on Bayview Avenue from Morning Street to Vesper Street.

Wood said that particular section of Bayview Avenue was not wide enough to accommodate both the parking and the two-way traffic on the block.

D’Andrea said she was convinced that particular section of Bayview, which ranges from 20 feet to 24 feet wide, was wide enough to support the nine proposed parking spots on the ocean side of the street.

“We heard from both chiefs Moulton and Thurlow, who said they did not see any particular safety concern with this parking,” D’Andrea said.

Council Chairwoman Judy Roy said she saw what the council ended up deciding as a compromise for all beach users.

“I think compromise is something we do when we can’t get our way,” she said. “I believe this is compromise.”

At the Feb. 16 meeting, aside from reconsidering parking at Higgins Beach, councilors will hear a presentation about plans for the town-owned parking lot from Town Manager Tom Hall.

The presentation, Hall said, will highlight recommendations from Bruce Gullifer, whose Community Services Department will be tasked with operating the lot.

“I recommend proceeding to full build-out of the facility at a measured pace as we gain clearer operational understanding, with the goal to serve the users effectively, maximize the value of anticipated future capital expenditures and minimize future operational costs,” Gullifer wrote in a letter to Hall.

To that end, Gullifer recommends operating the lot in conjunction with the Higgins Beach Inn, which would be responsible for opening the lot at 5:30 a.m. and closing the lot at 9:30 p.m. during the beach season, at least for the first year. Community Service staff would be responsible for charging the proposed $5 fee from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

By the second year, the opening and closing and fee structure would be dealt with by an automatic gate, which would charge an hourly fee to park in the parking lot.

This proposal, Gullifer said in the letter, would allow the town an opportunity to understand the requirements of operating the lot and the effectiveness of the recently passed parking regulations for other parts of the Higgins Beach neighborhood.