by Deborah Bach
Eagle Harbor to get state’s first open-water marina
Oct 22 2009 in Currents by Deborah Bach
Bainbridge Island city council approved plans for an open-water marina in Eagle Harbor, ending an era of free moorage for liveaboards and paving the way for the first open-water marina in the state.
At a meeting Wednesday, the Bainbridge city council voted 4-3 to establish an open-water marina in the harbor that will accommodate 16 vessels, including 12 visiting boats and four liveaboards. The plan will require liveaboards in Eagle Harbor to use designated mooring buoys and pay monthly moorage fees for the first time.
Anchoring would be permitted only by visiting boats, and the plan will effectively empty the harbor of the several dozen empty boats moored there indefinitely. The arrangement is intended to accommodate the small number of liveaboards in the harbor and bring them into compliance with state law, while opening up the crowded harbor for visiting boats.
The marina will be the first of its type in the state, under a provision introduced in 2002 to allow for residential mooring and anchorage areas. Bainbridge Island is the only community in Washington that has used the now-expired provision, said Bridget Moran, deputy supervisor for aquatics and agency resources for the state’s Department of Natural Resources.
“This is the only place that there will be an open-water established marina in Washington,” she said. “It’s a totally unique situation.”
The plan was the smallest and least expensive of three open-water marina options considered by council. The others would have accommodated 28 or 36 boats, with 75 percent of buoys reserved for transient (less than 30 days) use.
Wednesday’s vote, which came at the end of a three-hour meeting, was met with applause by the packed audience. But some liveaboards at the meeting expressed displeasure, saying the marina will drive out a community that has lived in the harbor for decades.
City of Bainbridge Island Mayor Chris Snow, who voted in favor of the plan, said the marina will help the city manage the harbor, which has become increasingly popular with island residents and visiting boaters as the region’s population has grown.
“The pressure on the space available in the harbor for use by lots of people has increased tremendously,” he said. “Last year, even in a recession, was the busiest time the harbor has ever experienced.”
But Snow said the plan is less than ideal, since the harbor’s liveaboards don’t want to pay moorage or may not be able to afford it.
“I think the only group that is really disappointed (with the decision) is the liveaboard community, who don’t want to pay any kind of fee or be restrained in any kind of way as to where and when and for how long they can put down their anchors,” he said.
“They have a certain amount of support in the community, because there has been a liveaboard community in the harbor for a long time.”
The city will lease the harbor from DNR, which has jurisdiction over the land, at 30 percent of the appraised value of an adjacent parcel of land occupied by a city dock and park. That cost will be passed along to boaters in the form of monthly and nightly moorage fees.
Snow said it’s unclear whether liveaboards will be able to afford the moorage rates, which he said will likely be comparable to moorage in a private marina. Though the current arrangement violates state law, it has been a source of affordable housing, Snow said.
“The practical implication of all of this might be that the price that we have to charge to live for moorage will be beyond their means, which is the reason why homeless people are on the streets – they can’t afford to pay for accommodations,” he said. “Homelessness, whether it’s on the water or on the land, is a social problem that we as a community have to find some solution to.”
The boats moored in Eagle Harbor have been a contentious issue among island residents for more than a decade. Some see the harbor as way to preserve a low-cost liveaboard lifestyle, but others have objected to boats being allowed to moor on public property at no cost and in violation of state regulations, some of them for years. State law prohibits boats from being on public property for longer than 30 days without a state-authorized use.
Officials say it’s difficult to ascertain how many liveaboards are in Eagle Harbor, and that most of the approximately 50 boats in the harbor sit empty and unattended for long periods. Two boats currently moored there are reportedly owned by a man who’s been in prison for more than a decade. Each year, the city spends thousands of dollars dealing with boats that are derelict or have sunk.
In response to a request from Bainbridge Island city council, DNR developed new rules in 2002 to allow for open-water residential moorage and anchorage areas. Communities that wanted to implement such areas were given a five-year deadline to amend their shoreline master plans and submit an application to DNR to lease marine lands.
The question of how to deal with Eagle Harbor has been under discussion by the city since 1999, being studied by numerous city committees and departments, undergoing a lengthy approval process and sparking two citizen lawsuits.
Tired of the delay, the DNR gave the city until the end of this year to sign a lease for an open-water marina and start paying the state for boats using the harbor. The city and DNR will now work together on developing the lease application and contract.
Moran was pleased by the outcome of yesterday’s meeting.
“We’re very pleased that the council took action,” she said. “The alternative is that we could be in a much less collaborative approach and go down the unauthorized use and trespass route. We don’t want to do that. We want to work collaboratively with the city.”
I’ve been included in taxes for lengthier then I care to admit, both on the individual side (all my employed lifetime!!) and from a legal stand since satisfying the bar and following tax law. I’ve furnished a lot of advice and righted a lot of wrongs, and I must say that what you’ve put up makes utter sense. Please continue the good work – the more individuals know the better they’ll be outfitted to handle with the tax man, and that’s what it’s all about.
I am a bit confused by the part about “free lunch”. Is the implication that a liveaboard should have to pay to keep his boat anchored in a harbor? I don’t see what service the city provides to the natural harbor. I would say that charging liveaboards who are on their own hooks, “taxation without representation.”
There is free lunch. Money is not everything. It’s just that the free lunch requires a bit of work and ingenuity. Like hunting animals or picking fruit off of trees. In fact, one might say that all lunches start out free, and get corrupted by this imaginary idol of mankind we call money.
I am presently a live aboard in a local marina. I pay 12.84 % tax based on my slip fee. It’s called a lease hold tax. The problem I have with it is under the law there is an recomended was to tax boaters in marinas on DNR property. Several port authorities however choose to ignore this. I.E. I am not paying fair and eqitable tax under the law. In addition the idea is to pay our fair share. Im ok with that but in light of the recent economic downturn property taxes have and will fall. There is no provission to adjust the 12.84 % lease hold tax. My property tax doesn’t decrease when the surounding properties taxes do. If the cities and the state wish to use the DNR excuse to tax us then they should use the section legislated for marinas. Presently it a policy of who has the bigger guns. There answer to me has been it’s only recomended to use the marina law not manditory so we aren’t going to use it.
The lease hold tax and provision for marinas can be found in the revised code of Washington. Not that any port authority will use it fairly.
Sorry Gail I was not as succinct as I should have been. I am a great believer in liveaboards, in a marina or on the hook, as long as they accept the responsibility to play by the rules. Liveaboards are a valuable asset for security reasons in marinas, more places should allow a certain percentage . I do not support people who camp out permanently on public property , or who anchor their boat permanently without recognizing there is no such thing as a free lunch. Most aggregious are those who abandon boats in public waterways..
Jack
Thanks for the comments, everyone (Gail, good to hear from you!)
This is clearly a controversial topic that people have varying opinions about. I do think the old adage about walking in another person’s shoes applies in this case. Liveaboards run the socio-economic gamut, just as people living in land-based residences do.
To Marvin’s point, the City of Bainbridge Island seems to have no clear idea of how many liveaboards are in Eagle Harbor. A city ordinance in place since 1998 requires liveaboards to register with the city, but there are currently only one or two people registered, according to city officials, and the ordinance isn’t enforced. That makes it difficult to determine how many liveaboards there are and how many liveaboard buoys would be optimal.
And Gail is correct – most of the boats moored in Eagle Harbor are unoccupied. Their owners have been enjoying free boat storage for extended periods, some for years.
Thanks for writing.
Deborah
I am a liveaboard. I am employed professionally. I may prefer cruising to working, but I am not one step above homelessness. Any implication that liveaboards – even those who have benefitted from free anchorage for many years – are simply looking for a free ride can pick up my mortgage payment on my boat and my moorage bill for my berth at a marina any time.
I would not pretend to know the circumstances of those who are affected by Eagle Harbor’s decision in this case, but if you criticize them don’t forget to levy criticism at the boat owners who don’t use their boats as their primary residence but are clogging up the harbor and anchoring out for free. Those people probably own their boats as tax write-offs (the “second home” deduction), and wind up profiting from their use of public lands. Somehow this gets lost in the discussion.
I support the concept of liveaboards, but unfortunatley it is abused by those who are looking for a free ride, by permanently anchoring on public land. Can’t do that is the state parks…shouldn’t be allowed on the water…if they can’t afford the dnr fee to put down a mooring,….they need to find a better paying job, (oh thats right…they probably don’t want to work anyway}. Get a life.
I wonder if the maritime history and heritage of Eagle Harbor includes those who were liveaboards.
“Accommodate the liveaboards”? How do you figure. They have allowed for only four, period. There are about twenty now. They are basically being kicked out.