As much as I appreciate the coverage of mooring issues provided by the January 28th VOC article, there is something missing in the story.
The basis of the elimination of the mooring transferability in Newport Harbor is the fact that State Lands decided that no one should profit off of public tidelands. Even though this practice of transferability has gone on for roughly a hundred years, all of a sudden, it’s supposedly not legal. Why? Because money is involved in the transfer and appears to be a problem, as no one is supposed to make money off of State Lands. Keep reading.
Actually, anyone who keeps a mooring in Newport would tell you, transfer costs between parties generally cover the years of costs involved in keeping said mooring equipment. In the new scenario, the city of Newport Beach will make literally millions. They will also assume ownership over time of the independently maintained mooring with rates so high that no one will want to use them as they will be about the same cost as a dock. Affordability is why we use the mooring fields instead in the first place.
What was not mentioned was that the people with waterfront homes have not been paying their fair share into the Tidelands fund for the space their docks occupy over public tidelands. Dock permittees pay at a MUCH lower rate per square foot than mooring holders do ($0.58/ sq ft (see pg 36) compared to $1.36/sq ft for moorings– (See Pg 27. A 40’ boat is said to occupy 1200 sq ft of tidelands) And dock permittees pay nothing for the space that the boats occupy over the water as mooring users do. Let me repeat that- The boats are not counted in the footprint. To put this in perspective, this would be like mooring holders only paying for the space their mooring balls occupy over the tidelands. To make things even more interesting, homeowners with docks are fully able to and do rent out their dock spaces to other individual boat owners with very little oversight (in essence, they are private marinas), often pocketing many thousands of dollars a month. If that isn’t profiting from State tidelands use, I don’t know what is. However, the city of Newport Beach and the State Lands Commission is turning a blind eye to the 10+ years of gifting of public funds. Conveniently, a shuttered issue. (In 2015, the city voted to go against State Lands Recommendations and exclude spaces over the water that boats cover.)
There is actually a working organization within the bay of very wealthy people who feel that anyone using a mooring is a deadbeat and doesn’t keep their boat up, or they feel that the boats on moorings are “in the way” of their pristine bay views. Who came first, the property owner or the moorings?
Then there is the issue of the very haughty yacht clubs who control many moorings in the bay. They too rent them out for profit that the yacht club takes. Profiting off of public tidelands!
If you look further into the fray, this ruling will affect mooring owners in Avalon, who have moorings they have paid transfer fees for in the 100’s of thousands, and moorings up and down the coast. This has the potential to impact coastal access throughout California. When this ruling affects people with that kind of money, expect pushback.
It’s really a shame that Newport feels it must be exclusive and unused by regular boaters. Only the rich! I grew up in Newport and I’m ashamed to say I did. My husband refused to move away as this was the only way we could afford to keep a boat, and we boated from our mooring for 40 years. It was our passion. Certainly in retirement there is no way to keep that going on with the proposed rates. I am super grateful for the use of that mooring. As school teachers it was our only way to boat.
Over the years we have seen a significant change in the storage of deteriorated boats in the bay. It’s pretty much cleaned up, thanks to Harbor Commission oversight. I don’t see what the problem is? I don’t see why people who pushed for this loss of transferability which will surely, eventually eliminate the regular boater from the bay, care to disrupt what works. Expect further interest in seeing that all bay users feel the same upswing in associated costs to keep a boat. If the supposed “profit” that individual mooring holders make is a problem, then surely the people profiting from private dock rentals must be stopped and the yacht clubs also. That would be fair and keeping with the State Lands recommendation that no one profits off of State Lands.
So given all of this, I want to know why transferability is only being threatened for mooring holders. What about the individual tidelands permits that dock permittees have? Are they being considered for conversion to expensive City-owned licenses? Nope. There are alternatives to this nonsense of ending transferability for moorings that will allow everyday boaters to continue to access Newport Harbor into the future.
The City is now proposing a 2 person Ad-Hoc committee that will not be subject to the Brown Act to make recommendations regarding the management of Tidelands in Newport Harbor. These two individuals are former Mayor and Harbor Commissioner Joe Stapleton, who voted to end transferability for mooring holders only at the July 9, 2024 Council Meeting and Mayor Pro Tem Blom, who has said he’s “cut from a different cloth.” I encourage all tidelands permittees to attend the upcoming City Council Meeting on Tuesday, February 10 at 4:00pm to share public comment on the formation of such an Ad-Hoc committee.
Meridee Thompson is a lifelong sailor who grew up in Newport Beach. She and her husband were school teachers and completed several extended cruises to Mexico, made possible by the accessibility offered by the moorings in Newport Harbor.
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