At the Jersey Shore, summer means one thing — a bumper‑to‑bumper caravan of cars lining every curb.

Residents like Gregory Boris of Diamond Beach watch their quiet streets fill with beachgoers racing to the sand. Meanwhile, unlucky drivers loop the block again and again, searching for a space tight enough to squeeze into.

To curb summer traffic in Diamond Beach, the small section of Lower Township bordering Wildwood Crest, officials are rolling out seasonal parking meters.

“I don’t think that people in Diamond Beach are really going to care too much about it, except that it might even somewhat benefit them by having less traffic,” said Boris, who settled in the roughly six-block community from Chester County, Pennsylvania.

The Lower Township Committee unanimously passed an ordinance Monday to require cashless, paid parking in Diamond Beach. Beginning this year, beachgoers will see new meters in areas of East Rochester, Atlantic, Seaview, South Station and East Raleigh avenues.

Parking rates are expected to be set at a later meeting through a resolution, according to a copy of the ordinance reviewed by NJ.com. Meters will be operational from May 15 to Oct. 15, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Introducing paid parking will encourage vehicle turnover, helping open spots open more frequently, the ordinance says. As with other towns, meters will help stabilize taxes, according to Township Administrator Michael Laffey.

The new meters will be a first for Lower Township, Laffey said. Township officials plan to use about 160 metered parking spots to generate between $150,000 and $175,000 yearly.

The meters will also help stop residents from clashing with beachgoers, Laffey said.

“Some people that live (in Diamond Beach) took it upon themselves to say, ‘Hey, you can’t park in front of my house,’ and took steps to do that by putting up their own signs, which...is a zoning violation,” Laffey said.

Diamond Beach on Five Mile Island is among the Jersey Shore’s smallest areas, with only about 200 full-time residents, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Along with Shawcrest, it’s one of the township’s only two sections that sit off the mainland at the southern tip of Cape May County.

Diamond Beach is possibly best known for bordering Wildwood Crest, one of the four towns that make up The Wildwoods, which draw thousands of tourists each summer. While meters will cut down on parking times in Diamond Beach, some Crest residents fear the policy will shift the parking burden onto them.

Kathy Popper’s home on East Jefferson Street sits right on the line between Wildwood Crest and Diamond Beach. And like many Shore residents, she says the warm weather brings the annual parking battle between locals and visitors.

“We can’t have friends over because we have no parking,” said Popper, 75.

Popper’s neighbor two doors down, Nancy Hollingsworth, has lived in town for 50 years. Hollingsworth says she has been in the town long enough to see how Diamond Beach transformed from a quaint neighborhood to a place with high-rises and gated communities.

Among its best-known properties is The Grand at Diamond Beach, a massive high-rise that opened in 2009.

“I’ve had cars parked across the street and next door to me that don’t move for a week,” said Hollingsworth, 65.

Many new condos, Hollingsworth said, have only one parking spot per unit when families bring two vehicles to the shore for vacation. The new meters will likely cause more vehicles to circle the area to find free parking, possibly on Jefferson Street, Hollingsworth said.

“I feel Diamond Beach is overbuilt, way overbuilt,” Hollingsworth said. “They don’t have adequate parking for their own units.”

“They’re a different town; we get no benefit,” Hollingsworth added. “We don’t get anything from them, except we get their rentals’ overflow of cars and congestion.”

Asked about meters causing parking wars in Wildwood Crest, Laffey said, “I can’t determine that.”

At the same meeting, the Township Committee approved a five-year contract with ParkMobile, the mobile application growing in popularity for cashless parking payments. Municipal documents do not state the cost for the township adopting its service.

The app’s effectiveness in monitoring parking times is evident in Stone Harbor, a Cape May County borough north of Diamond Beach, which tallied $49,000 in violations within one month.

The cashless cell phone application has been widely adopted at the Jersey Shore. Of the 26 municipalities using the app-based payment system, half are Jersey Shore towns.

Local officials say they’ve embraced the technology for its convenience, moving away from the old coin‑based meters that dominated the Shore for decades.

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