Port Votes Firmer Grip on Houseboats in Harbor

The San Diego Unified Port Commission on Tuesday approved a series of regulations and fees aimed at removing unseaworthy houseboats moored in the Shelter Island commercial basin areas of San Diego Bay.

The 5-2 vote followed considerable opposition from houseboat owners who have taken up residence in the areas free of charge, and from South Bay officials who feared that the vessels that would be disallowed under the ordinance would be towed to Coronado or Imperial Beach for anchorage.

Under the ordinance, the port will contract for the construction of 258 mooring buoys, to be rented to houseboat owners at $30 per month. Current houseboat owners will be first on the list for space in the bay, commissioners said Tuesday. Fifteen percent of the spaces will be reserved for transient boats traveling through the area.

If houseboats do not meet state health and safety standards--and speakers at Tuesday’s meeting said many of the boats now in the bay do not--they will be refused space in the Shelter Island basin.

Each will be inspected by the state before being allowed to purchase the monthly permits from the Port Commission.

“The intent of the permit process is to create a landlord-tenant relationship with the user of the buoy,” a report from the port commission staff said. “The landlord-tenant relationship allows the port to regulate and govern use of the buoys.”

Coronado Councilwoman Mary Herron said the Port District should delay approval of the plan. “It is the city’s hope that the Port District will consider a delay in implementation . . . until there is a program to assure that derelict vessels which have not been desired and wanted in the waters within the City of San Diego will not be allowed to relocate in South Bay waters,” Herron said, referring specifically to the “areas adjacent to the residential areas of the City of Coronado.”

Charles Williams, president of the Shelter Island Anchorage Assn., said the houseboat owners are “just a community that is trying to stay together.”

Cost of the mooring project is estimated at $555,000.