Appraiser recommends big price hikes for Newport Harbor guest moorings

An appraisal of Newport Beach’s public guest moorings suggests that the city could charge visiting mariners significantly more.

Guest rates are a flat $27 a night in the summer, or $16 a night in the off-season, for an offshore mooring. A recent study by appraiser James Netzer suggests a year-round rate based on boat length: $1.25 per foot, per night, which would make a 40-foot boat $50 per night.

Newport Harbor encompasses about 1,200 moorings — 800 offshore and 400 onshore — over 12 mooring fields, which are essentially watery parking lots. Boat owners typically berth in their assigned spots year-round.

Guests can berth at moorings that are assigned to a main tenant, but are currently empty — a kind of sublease while the regular permitted tenant is out of town or otherwise isn’t using the spot.

Although the city has long run the harbor’s annual mooring permit program, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Harbor Patrol had handled guest moorings.

That changed in July, when Newport Beach took over all aspects of harbor mooring administration from the county, including temporary mooring rentals, permit transfers, verification of boat owners’ maintenance and insurance obligations, and emergency towing, plus city code enforcement. City management sees the potential rate adjustments as a revenue opportunity worth about $75,000 more for harbor operations.

Netzer’s suggested rate structure increases fees for onshore moorings for small boats, adds a per-hull premium for catamarans and trimarans, and establishes a separate, $1.55-per-foot rate for large vessels, or vessels at least 100 feet long.

Overall, the proposed fee menu would hike rates for all but the smallest boats — those under 22 feet for offshore mooring fields, and only under existing summer rates — and under 18 feet for onshore moorings.

The Harbor Commission took no action on the item when it reviewed the study Monday, opting instead to reevaluate in January, when a commission subcommittee that studied large-vessel rates makes its presentation. (In a separate action Monday, the commission defined “large” vessels as 80 feet and above. Netzer’s appraisal was completed well before then.)

Commissioner Paul Blank said he couldn’t endorse the proposed rates, but he would be willing to support smaller increases.

He said the city essentially competes with itself when it offers short-term offshore moorings and guest slips at Marina Park along the Balboa Peninsula.

Marina slips usually come with amenities and creature comforts that offshore moorings — which require dinghies to access — lack.

Boaters who stay in one of the 23 slips at Marina Park have access to an onsite café, laundry, restrooms and showers, utilities, wireless Internet, and beach, playground and picnic areas, for $60 a night in a 40-foot boat. Under the appraisal’s rates, a basic mooring wouldn’t be much cheaper: $50 a night for a 40-footer.

“I don’t know too many boaters that would not pay the premium to be at Marina Park,” Blank said.

Knocking the per-foot rate to 75 cents, though, would make a night in an offshore mooring $30, making the value tiers more obvious.

Blank also said he appreciated the premium for multi-hulled boats — they’re wider than mono-hulls of comparable length — but noted that power catamarans take up less space than sailing catamarans. He also suggested cutting the multi-hull premium to 12.5 cents per foot, per additional hull.

Netzer studied transient mooring fees along California’s coast, including Catalina Island’s many harbors and coves, Long Beach’s Outer Harbor, Half Moon Bay south of San Francisco, and Newport’s Balboa Yacht Club, which rents spaces to members of reciprocal yacht clubs.

“The fair market rent is what will the market bear, and what’s presented in my report is what the market will bear right now for a transient mooring,” Netzer said.

George Hylkema, who keeps a boat moored in Newport Harbor year-round, told the commission about a friend who sails from Alaska to Hawaii, spending months at sea. One of his stops is in Newport.

But some seafaring travelers, like the Alaskan sailor, don’t have a lot of money, Hylkema said.

“I think if moorings were to go to $50 or $60 a night we would never see the likes of this gentleman again.”

Suggested nightly guest mooring rates

Mooring type / Current / Proposed / Example

Off-shore / $16 (winter) / $27 (summer), flat / $1.25 per foot (year-round) / 40’ boat = $50/night

On-shore* / $11 (year-round), flat / 62.5 cents per foot (year-round) / 18’ boat = $11.25/night

Large vessel** / Prorated annual permit rate (about 10 cents per foot )/ 100’ = $155; Invictus (216’): $334.80

Multihull premium / None / 25 cents per foot, per added hull / 40’ catamaran = $60/night ($1.50/foot); 40’ trimaran = $70/night ($1.75/foot)

*maximum 18’

**100’ and above

Source: Netzer & Assoc.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD