Tighter Controls of Boat Moorings OKd

The California Coastal Commission has approved, 7-0, the San Diego Unified Port District’s plan to tighten control of small boats in San Diego Bay, boosting port officials’ hopes of reorganizing moorings within a year.

The Port District’s next step is to seek support from the Coast Guard for the plan, which would set aside eight mooring areas in the bay and ban the anchoring of boats outside those areas except in marinas.

The Coast Guard may hold public hearings on the “baywide small craft mooring and anchorage plan,” Fred Trull, director of the Port District’s planning office, said Friday. The Coast Guard must rule on the plan because the bay was designated a free anchorage in 1915 by the federal government.

The mooring project--approved by the Coastal Commission, with one abstention, at a meeting Thursday in Los Angeles--is expected to cost $550,000.

Boaters have protested that the plan would restrict their ability to live on the boats.

“We are pleased to get the approval,” Trull said. “The proposed plan will now go to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Long Beach office for their approval and evaluation. Assuming it meets with their approval, they will formulate federal regulations, and those regulations will be published in the Federal Register. . . . It may be that they’ll even hold public hearings on the proposed plan.”

It could take as long as eight months for the Coast Guard to come to a decision, Trull said.

The Coastal Commission vote follows action Tuesday by the port commission, which 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.