The National Park Service is proposing to raise camping fees to $28 per night, up from $20 per night, a rate that has been in place since 2004. The campground rate increase will allow campsites reservations to be made via the national campground reservation system ensuring that visitors will be able to reserve a campsite in advance of their visit.
The new fees could be implemented in early 2015. However, the implementation schedule may vary based on the results of civic engagement. The park will develop an implementation schedule that supports local communities and interested stakeholders.
Cyndy Holda, Seashore spokesperson, said the fee evaluation does not include the fees for driving on the beach. Those are under a different pot of money and were implemented through different federal legislation than the camp ground fees.
The park is considering adding new campground amenities, such as electrical hookups at some individual campsites. The new fee structure for this amenity would be $7 per night for these sites. In addition, the park proposes to change the group camp site fee structure from $4 per person per night to $70 per site per night.
Each group site is limited to a maximum of 30 occupants.
Mike Colopy, revenue and fee business manager for the Seashore said the only group campground site in the Seashore sites is at Oregon Inlet.
Interagency Access and Senior Pass holders will continue to receive a 50 percent discount on camping. Interagency Passes, which are honored at all federal managed land units, are not affected by the proposed fee increase and will remain at $80 for the regular pass, $10 for the Senior Pass and free for Access and Military passes.
In addition, the Wright Brothers National Memorial is proposing to increase the entrance fee into the Memorial. The proposed change would transition the entrance fee from a per-person to a per-vehicle cost structure.
The proposed entrance fee would be $15 per vehicle and $10 per motorcycle. All entrance passes are valid for seven consecutive days. The Memorial’s annual pass would increase from $20 to $30. The current park entrance fee of $4 per-person, in place since 2006, is significantly below the national minimum entrance fee for this type of site. The fee increase is part of a larger National Park Service initiative to standardize fees in similar national parks across the country.
A 30-day public engagement period on the proposed fee increase opened Nov. 10 and continues through Friday, Dec. 12.
Comments will be accepted via the National Park Services Planning, Environment, and Public Comment System (PEPC) at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/comment and U.S. Postal mail addressed to: Outer Banks Group Superintendent, Attention: Proposed Fee Increase, 1401 National Park Drive, Manteo, NC 27954.
For information on visiting the parks of the Outer Banks Group, please visit the park’s websites at www.nps.gov/wrbr, www.nps.gov/caha, and http://www.nps.gov/fora, or by calling 252-473-2111.
