Public Marinas and Developers...Gulp!

[Warren Kaplan]

Here's an interesting article worth reading. The way of the future for many of us I fear.

Marina Space Dwindling in U.S. Hot Spots
By JOHN PAIN, AP

MIAMI (Jan. 21) - For eight years, Rob Quinlivan has lived in his version of paradise - a 40-foot power boat docked in a public marina.

It's a life that's given him adventure, freedom and a way to experience the best of South Florida without the soaring prices of its red-hot real estate market.

"Where else can you get living on a waterfront property, you know, some of the best climates in the world?" said the 60-year-old manufacturing engineer.

But Quinlivan's slip fees have jumped $200 a month over the past two years to $700, and he and other boaters are finding out the hard way that the real estate boom isn't limited to dry land. Public places to dock are getting harder to come by as developers buy up marinas to convert them into private slips for luxury condominiums in popular areas such as Florida and California.

According to the Boat Owners Association of the United States, the pressures of development are a real concern for the nation's estimated 13,000 public marinas, 11,000 of which are "mom-and-pop" family owned operations.

"These owners have put a lot of sweat equity into their facilities. They're getting up there in years and a developer comes along and offers them a big check, and it's attractive," said Scott Croft, a spokesman for the Alexandria, Va.-based association.

The real estate boom in prime waterfront areas has been accompanied by a surge in boat ownership. There were 12.78 million boats registered in the U.S. in 2004, the most recent Coast Guard figures available, down slightly from a peak of 12.87 million in 2001.

But top-ranked Florida's registrations rose 79,900 over the same time and third-ranked California's climbed 61,700 last year alone, according to state data.

Pineda Point Marina in Melbourne on Florida's central Atlantic coast has witnessed the boom since the family owned business started about 15 years ago. The marina's 100 slips are always full, and manager Scott Jordan said developers have casually asked his father, the owner, about selling.

"I'm not saying that we're going to stay here no matter what," he said. "If someone was to come around and offered the kind of money that was a ridiculously high price."

He said rising insurance rates and property taxes that accompany the real estate boom have also made the marina less profitable. Property taxes alone jumped 28 percent last year, from $11,713 annually to more than $15,000.

Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, a state agency that handles boating access, is concerned about the marina situation and is awaiting the results of a study that will gauge the exact number of facilities lost to development.

"There is, at this point, little that we can do," said commission spokesman Willie Puz. "Because it's private property, we can't regulate it."

Lawmakers plan to introduce a bill in the Florida Legislature this year that would encourage local governments to preserve public marinas, Florida Association of Counties spokeswoman Kriss Vallese said. Some counties are also taking steps to keep marinas open - Palm Beach County recently approved $15 million to preserve one of its marinas.

Developers say the shortage of marina space is simply another part of the real estate boom.

"In a state like Florida, we have people moving into the state and one of the main draws is the water. That's a diminishing percentage of land as opposed to the number of people coming in. The one thing we can't grow is beachfront," said Jim Cohen, a principal with Boca Developers.

He said developers are also providing a service by modernizing some public marinas that have fallen into disrepair. His company, based in Deerfield Beach, also has set aside about 10 percent of the marina space at one of its properties for public use.

But for some boaters, that isn't enough. Jim Edwards, 39, originally from Florence, Ala., lives on his 41-foot sailboat with his girlfriend and travels around the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Since leaving land 10 years ago, he said he has seen Florida change from an affordable place for boaters.

"It's a place for the wealthy who have the money to enjoy the waterfront," Edwards said. "If you don't have, you know, a big boat and a lot of money, they don't really want you."


01-21-06 02:57 EST

[Joe Myerson]

Warren:

Thanks for posting this article. It gives us something else to fret about during the off-season. Of course, the problem isn't limited to Florida. We're seeing it wherever there's waterfront, and wherever there are people who want to live near the water and can afford to do so.

Maine recently enacted legislation to preserve "working waterfronts" by protecting boatyards, fish piers and like from being taxed on their potential as luxury waterfront property--but I don't know if the protection extends to facilities for recreational boaters. That state, of course, has a vibrant commercial lobstering and fishing industry that would be threatened by encroaching condominiumization of the coastline. I think a few Florida counties have considered enacting similar rules.

Another approach, I suppose, is to have publicly owned marinas, either as state parks (New Jersey is an example) or locally owned enterprises (Nyack, NY, recently acquired Petersen's Boat Yard to preserve the riverfront from development).

This strikes me as one of those areas (one of several, actually) where recreational boaters and commercial fishermen have a common interest. So do boat manufacturers and dealers. But whether these groups, along with conservationists and preservation groups, could ever get together and push successfully against real estate developers, local communities hungry for property tax revenue and the families who stand to benefit from the sale of marinas and boatyards after years of working hard and seeing little money, is a major question.

It's something to worry about, along with my pet peeve of manufacturers building bigger and bigger boats to keep their bottom lines healthy while selling fewer and fewer units--and gobbling up dock space and slips in the process. (It's a sound business strategy, but how are young families going to get into boating, and how will they teach their kids to enjoy the water?)

Well, enough editorializing. I'm sure others on this board will have lots of wisdom to impart to this thread.

--Joe

[John R.]

rewritten with copy changes

[John R.]

I've lived in SW Florida for 25 years on the waterfront. Prior to that I lived in St. Petersburg on the waterfront. Florida has changed so much for boaters over the last 10 -15 years it is sickening. Like Warren's article noted services and marinas disappear to development faster than you can find a new place to take your boat.

The boat density here is staggering but the service facilities are extremely limited and becoming fewer and fewer all the time. The waterways have become more and more congested with each passing year. Developers have overtaken many beautiful natural land areas and built high density sprawling complex's that attract northeners to the Florida "lifestyle" as illustrated in marketing brochures. The unsuspecting buyers with boats find out later what a nightmare it is later to find good service facilities aside from high and drys for small and medium powerboats. Full service yards have become endangered species.

Reasonable docking facilities have just about disappeared. Waiting lists are extremely long. The privately owned marinas open to the public are far and few between. There are a few city marinas in various communities but costs are climbing and waiting lists are forever. Developers have bought many of the private service yards and have done the condo thing with waterfront slips at exorbitant prices.

The good old days are long gone, period. The local governments do nothing about it, all they see is greater tax revenues. New boat dealers spring up everey month. Boat shows grow and new ones come along. The dream is sold and marketed to but the support infrastructure is disappearing at a overwhelming rate.

Write your local, state and federal officials. Support Boat US and other boating foundations that can put pressure on communities and lawmakers to put an end to the demise of the American boating dream for all citizenry, not just preserve it for the wealthy. Voice your concerns to those that can make for change. The developers are winning. Fight it now or boaters will lose forever!!
I've seen many a fine marine facility and beautiful natural lands around here disappear in the name of GREED. It's very disheartening and sad to witness what has been happening in Florida.

[Rollergirl]

Some hope here, I think. Or not.
Brick Township, NJ (where I have a second home), a town with more coastal frontage then any other NJ municipality, has passed a law that prohibits any marina conversion to a different usage. Like any other law, this one passed for internectine political reasons, and has manifold political implications. Two stand out for me.

First, and the most emotionally satisifing, the marinas stay.

Secondly, the marina owners are now second class citizens. No right to buy or sell like the rest of us; no freedom without a court fight in which the deck is stacked against them, and even as a protected class, no guaranteed income to pay the property taxes due from a commercial endeavor.

I admit to very mixed feelings.
And I don't even own a marina, and worse, don't patronize them either. My boats float off my bulkhead at my backyard, or go off the crane at Seaside Park Yacht Club. I buy my gas from a Mobil station in a 1 gallon jug. My parts come mostly from the 'Net, or Colie Sails.
I'm a small business owner (digital printing in NYC) and have taken the course I have because I am structualy incapable of working for anyone else. I believe most of the people I know who are self-employed (and this includes marina owners I have spoken to) feel the same. I will do anything for the customers i want or need, but ultimately know I can do or not do whatever i want as long as I bear the consequences.
These marina owners cannot since this law was passed.
Would you want anyone to tell you want to do, how to live or what to say? I think not.
So how do we deal with this? Eternal waterfront access? Full public Littoral Rights? Capitalists owning the coastlines? Not my problem?
Just typing this gives me a headache.
Anybody got a firm date for Spring at Barnaget Bay?

Bill

[Kato]

I do see some good news in this thread. Not all is lost just yet.

The yard I had my boat in this year successfully fought and won an eminent domain challenge from city politicians to develop condos on the land. Basically a mud flat off the Delaware River. It took the town citizens of Delanco, New Jersey rising up to challenge the power of the town to use the new eminent domain clause to increase tax base and "improve” the waterfront by removing marinas. Lawyers had to be hired. Local charity events were held to cover legal costs. It took effort on the part of people who did not want to be run over roughshod.

There is a real danger in the eminent domain powers that enable municipalities to condemn marinas as “blighted areas” in order to develop the land and thus increase the tax base (money in their pockets, a big raise). The marina I was in was a little rough around the edges to be sure, but blight I guess is in the eye of beholder. Personally I don’t see old boats as blight. Some do.

[Neil Gordon]

Development locally isn't impacting the marinas directly. It's clamping down on available off season storage space though. Condo development is a better land use financially. (Maybe sailing south for the winter isn't such a bad idea.)

[NANP]

It's still okay here in South Texas . . . for now. I can't speak for Galveston, but in CC, slip rates are still reasonable, condos with slips can be had for under 50K, and so far, developers have mainly wanted to turn our waterfronts into amusement park-style themed developments (Landry's wanted to put in a Ferris wheel, for example) and have been rejected by the voters/city council.

Perhaps it's only a matter of time, but so far, so good.

~Terence

[Mark Yashinsky]

from Dec 15, 2005. Look at http://www.users.cloud9.net/~yashinsk/i ... _Docks.pdf