Houseboat Community Struggles to Stay Afloat

Dudley Lewis used wood from a rotting pier and copper fastenings from an old power line to build his seaworthy home.

Lewis, a part-time writer and journeyman machinist and carpenter, lives on his boat, one in the ramshackle collection of mostly rebuilt, refurbished old boats on the Sausalito waterfront.

Skimming the Bay

Lewis’ days are spent skimming the bay or working on his vessel, a replica of the New Jersey oyster scow that Joshua Slocum sailed around the world in 1893. In the evening, he visits with neighbors or works on his writing projects.

But Lewis’ slice of Bohemia is one without security. Pressure from a variety of sources, including environmentalists, bureaucrats and developers, is slowly altering the face of Sausalito, just north of San Francisco.

Members of the waterfront community say they are worried that the area will turn into another Marina del Rey, the Los Angeles coastal haven for expensive pleasure crafts, condos and upscale restaurants. Berths in Marina del Rey cost almost three times what a berth in the Sausalito Yacht Harbor costs.

“Ask any person living on a boat in this bay and they’ll tell you that they don’t want another Marina del Rey here,” said Leonard Sellers, who lived aboard his boat in the Sausalito Yacht Harbor for several years.

In addition, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, a regional body established by the state Legislature, has recommended that no new houseboat marinas be licensed, which may force several older, unlicensed communities of houseboats to disband and relocate.

There are about 1,500 people living on the Marin County side of San Francisco Bay in an assortment of vessels, ranging from expensive houseboats and yachts to sagging schooners and fishing boats. Some live in cooperative “live-aboard” communities like Galilee Harbor, where Lewis keeps his boat moored. Others make their homes on sleek-looking yachts moored in the Sausalito Yacht Harbor, while those known as “anchorouts,” live out in the bay.

‘Discovered’ in 1970s

The Sausalito waterfront has been home to artists, writers and painters for almost a century. Jack London lived here. But in the 1970s, Sausalito was “discovered.” The rising price of adjacent land, congested traffic and swarms of tourists induced many of the counterculturists to move away. A few remained.

“Now most of us spend a minimum of 20 hours per week just working on the politics, protecting our homes and life style,” said Chris Lamb, chairman of the board of the Galilee Harbor Cooperative Assn., which has 60 members living on 40 boats.

In 1981, a study of the bay by the Regional Water Quality Control Board, found substantially higher levels of bacteria in the waters near the marinas.

“It is a reasonable inference that the high levels of bacteria were a result of sewage dumping by the houseboaters,” said Steven Hill, an environmental specialist with the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

The commission responded by drafting the Richardson Bay Special Area Plan, which would designate the area as a no-discharge area and impose penalties on people who dump sewage into the bay.

The plan also would require all anchorouts (except 22 boats moored within the Sausalito city limits) to either rent a space in a marina or leave the bay by June. It is estimated that there are between 100 and 150 anchorouts.

The plan, which was designed to prevent the bay from becoming what commission members call “a Hong Kong of the West,” is awaiting approval by the state Water Resources Control Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Clean Water Act, the existing federal regulation, already specifies what can be put into the bay. To obtain EPA approval for the special area plan, the commission must prove that the federal regulation is not stringent enough to keep the bay water clean, Hill said.

The boat dwellers contend, however, that they are not dumping their sewage. “It’s really a joke,” Lewis said. “If they were really interested in stopping the pollution in the bay they would go after the other 96% dumped by cities and industry. This is just political harassment because they want to get rid of us.”

In addition to the plan, the commission recommended, as part of its houseboat and live-aboard report published last year, that no new permits for houseboat marinas be granted. However, commission members claim that enough marina space is or will be available should the anchorouts choose to stay in the area.

Almost one-fourth of the known houseboaters are moored at marinas that have been operating without permits for several decades, although some contend that the commission has no right to deny them authority to operate.

If the local authorities shut Galilee down, and no new houseboat marina permits are issued, residents will be forced to scatter to existing available berths, move onto land or leave the bay entirely.

“The majority of us could find a place to live, but more than half of the people here do maritime-related work, fishing and boat building. It wouldn’t be economically feasible for them to move onto land. They’d have to change their whole way of life,” Lamb said.

Albert Aramburu, a Marin County supervisor and a member of the commission, says he has nothing against the houseboaters and live-aboards, but “just wants to solve once and for all a situation that’s been dragging on for years.”

However, “the ideal situation would be to phase out the live-aboards--these people are more trouble than they’re worth,” Aramburu added.

Land Values Rising

Despite the on-going political battle, most say that it’s the economics, not the politics, that will be the demise of communities like the one Lewis lives in. Land values in Sausalito are rising, by almost 350% since 1970.

“Frankly, I’m pessimistic,” said Jack Van der Meulen, a resident of Galilee harbor. “We can beat back the politics, but I don’t know how we will fight the economics. We’re being priced right out of the water.”