NEWPORT BEACH : Official Sees Slip Fee Boost as Inevitable

Although a protest by boat owners in Newport Harbor has succeeded in preventing a 23% jump in slip fees, stiff increases probably are inevitable because of supply and demand, a city official said this week.

While the super-rich may not be staggered by rent hikes, boat owners on a tight budget can be nudged out of the harbor altogether by them, one boat captain said.

“It pushes people that are on a shoestring--barely able to afford their boats--it pushes them somewhere else,” said Bruce Cunard, captain of a 68-foot motor yacht docked at the Bayshore Marina. “Then only those who are super-rich are going to be able to afford their boats, and that’s not right.”

The Irvine Co. opted recently to cut a 23% slip-rent increase to 9% after boat owners at Bayshore Marina railed against the larger increase, which would have raised the average rent by just over $100 per month.

For weeks, the proposed rent increase had been the talk of the marina among boat owners who feared such an increase eventually would mean a sizable jump in their rent-slip fees as well, according to Tony Melum, tidelands administrator for Newport Beach.

“It’s become a topic within the harbor,” Melum said Monday. “Not just within the Irvine Co. slips, but throughout the harbor.”

According to Melum, marina operators tend to watch for trends in rent increases and follow suit. Had rates jumped 23%, other operators in the harbor may have considered similar action, he said.

Daryl Landrum, general manager for California Recreation Co., a division of the Irvine Co. which manages Bayshore and three other Newport Beach marinas owned by the company, acknowledged that marina operators call one another regularly to keep tabs on what others are charging for slip-rents.

The protest from Bayshore renters was the first time boat owners who rent Irvine Co. slips have balked at a rent hike, Landrum said.

With the 9% increase, boaters at Bayshore Marina will pay from $12 to $16.50 per foot each month for their slips, Landrum said.

In general, slip-rent rates are higher in Newport Beach than in other coastal cities in Orange and San Diego counties, he said. Still, all of the Newport marinas have waiting lists of one to five years, Melum said.

While plans for another potential marina that could someday provide 125 slips at Dover Drive and Coast Highway are inching their way through the environmental review process, Landrum said, there is already a waiting list for those slots.