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wgerstmyer · 05-03-2024, 05:57

Before laws can be written, you must define your terms. Proposed:
1. Public Resource: private ownership confers many rights to the private realm but at some point, for the public good and to ensure that wealth does not take over every asset, a subset of resources is set aside and developed as not-private but publicly accessible. Taxes (we each pay a small part for the good of us all) and fees typically fund these. Most waterways fall into this category of a public resource thanks to the historical use of waterways as necessary conveyances like today’s highways.
2. Public navigable waterway: available for vessels to transit safely provided that some dimensional constraints limit this, such as depths, fairways, overhangs, etc.
Federal and State grants are provided to fund pump out operations, dredging, bridge-opening operators and bridge maintenance, a Coast Guard with oversight, installation and maintenance of navigational aids, etc. so they are not without cost.
3. Public Anchorages: waterways that do not interfere with #2. Similar to not parking a car on a highway. For boating safety, places to rest along the way during a long passage are necessary. While environmental demands suggest that pumpouts are important (and thus are funded) what is not guaranteed for the boater are amenities such as food, water and fuel. At the moment these are considered to be plentiful enough that prudent passage planning should allow one to find these.
4. Private Boat: moves in #2 and 3 in a safe, seaworthy fashion, holds waste according to its (required) onboard discharge plan.
5. Private Boat Owner: responsible for safe operation and storage of his vessel and damage done by its Private Boat in the public realm. Is responsible for the disposal of his property when no longer meeting these terms.

>When a municipality takes control of a body of water this should give us pause. Are the public benefits proposed able to justify the change in definition or “ownership”?
>Landowners that choose to live near the public water are not guaranteed their views as part of their land ownership.
>Public/government funds already fund many water operations that largely benefit boaters more than land owners and at what point should land-water amenities, like funded pump out stations, be as much a municipal requirement as a bridge operator? At what point is public access, like a dinghy dock, a requirement so that a boater can get access to shore in an emergency?
>When people and their “vessels” are no longer boating but permanently taking up public waterway areas for private use (permanent lodging) are they abusing the intent of the law by limiting the rights of others to utilize the waterway?

Montanan · 05-03-2024, 08:06

In today's news:

It's Cheaper to Live on a Boat Than Rent an Apartment in These U.S. Cities

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/new...f7acf52&ei=109

Of keen issue is that the focus is on just comparing the berth rent versus the apartment rent. There are many other expenses to consider.

Snipets:

the average 2023 rent in America is $2,052, which is a 3.3 percent increase compared to last year.

. . .

Rightboat isn’t just speaking in theory. The company took data from the most expensive cities to rent across the nation to compare it with how much a boat slip costs in the same spot.

It found the biggest savings in New York City, where the average apartment (rent plus utilities) runs around $4,082.36. In contrast, someone can pick up the average slip (plus utilities) for $1,800, marking a $2,282.36 potential savings.

Seattle came in second, with the average apartment rent going for $2,856.70 and the average slip going for $1,350, coming in with a massive $1,506.70 savings.

Austin had the third-largest savings at $1,488.79, followed by Nashville with a savings of $1,446.78, and San Francisco rounded out the top five with $943.85 in potential savings.

wholybee · 05-03-2024, 08:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Montanan

In today's news:

It's Cheaper to Live on a Boat Than Rent an Apartment in These U.S. Cities

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/new...f7acf52&ei=109

Of keen issue is that the focus is on just comparing the berth rent versus the apartment rent. There are many other expenses to consider.

Snipets:

the average 2023 rent in America is $2,052, which is a 3.3 percent increase compared to last year.

. . .

Rightboat isn’t just speaking in theory. The company took data from the most expensive cities to rent across the nation to compare it with how much a boat slip costs in the same spot.

It found the biggest savings in New York City, where the average apartment (rent plus utilities) runs around $4,082.36. In contrast, someone can pick up the average slip (plus utilities) for $1,800, marking a $2,282.36 potential savings.

Seattle came in second, with the average apartment rent going for $2,856.70 and the average slip going for $1,350, coming in with a massive $1,506.70 savings.

Austin had the third-largest savings at $1,488.79, followed by Nashville with a savings of $1,446.78, and San Francisco rounded out the top five with $943.85 in potential savings.

I have to call BS. The problem is that they are comparing AVERAGE rent to the cost of living on a boat. The experience living on a boat is much more comparable to what you get paying the lowest rent in a city. AVERAGE rent is substantially higher than the lowest rent. Average Rent in SF is $2823*. I am paying $1000 per month rent in San Francisco, and the building I am in always has vacancies. I have a nicer unit (relative to other units in the building) and some are as low as $850. So, if you are comparing apples to apples based on the quality of living, then living on a boat is NOT cheaper in SF. What is cheaper is lowering your quality of living, either by moving on a boat or moving to a cheaper place on land.

I also have to point out that is is more-or-less impossible to live on a boat in San Francisco area. I am on multiple wait lists, and expect I will die before I get accepted. It is difficult but more possible in the east bay, except that I value not being killed.(Exaggeration, but crime is out of control over there, and that especially includes vandalism and theft in marinas)

* https://www.apartments.com/rent-mark...-francisco-ca/

**JoeRobertJr** · 05-03-2024, 08:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by wholybee

I have to call BS.

Agreed. Rightboat is a boat sales company. Their "analysis" is intended to drive people to their website for sales. The analysis is BS because they are not looking at total expenses, but rather just comparing a portion (rent vs slip fees) as if that is all that matters for affordability.

lestersails · 05-03-2024, 09:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by wholybee

I have to call BS. The problem is that they are comparing AVERAGE rent to the cost of living on a boat. The experience living on a boat is much more comparable to what you get paying the lowest rent in a city. (stuff deleted)

You beat me to it! Again, this is not mostly about desperate people who would be homeless absent their free ride in the harbor. It is a choice by people who want to live this way and work to shift the costs to others.

Montanan · 05-03-2024, 17:51

Miami-Dade is the latest county to go into debt to try to do what its private sector won’t: Build houses

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/real...3f8b6c8&ei=291

Snipets:

"There is undoubtedly a housing crunch across the U.S.—and one of the places where it’s particularly difficult to find an affordable home is Miami. The locality posted the nation’s largest annual price gains at nearly 11% as of November 2023, according to CoreLogic. Meanwhile, Miami-Dade county is short more than 90,000 affordable housing units, a University of Florida housing analysis shows."

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said in her state of the county address in late January. In reaction to the housing crisis in the county, Cava plans to propose a $2.5 billion property tax-backed debt package, she said, $800 million of which will go directly toward affordable housing. Voters will decide on the bond proposal in November.

Building more affordable housing has been one of Cava’s major areas of focus during her tenure. She was elected in November 2020, before the housing market took a turn for the worse—at least for buyers fighting 8% mortgage rates, sky-high home prices, and abysmal inventory levels. In April 2022, she declared an affordability crisis

So far, Cava’s administration has sponsored a first-time homebuyer program that provides below-market loan rates, renovated three public housing developments, and plans to start developing more low-income housing with $40 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The average home in Miami costs more than $522,000, Zillow data shows, which is about 56% more expensive than a median-priced home in the U.S., according to the Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index. Prices continue to rise in this area

Also, Florida homeowner's insurance cost has become exorbitant and hard to obtain.

Montanan · 05-03-2024, 18:11

Homeownership Crisis: How the American Dream Slipped Away in Just 4 Years

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/real...b50df419&ei=56

A few snipets:

Today, aspiring homeowners face a daunting financial reality: earning over $106,000 is now a prerequisite for affording a home comfortably—an 80% increase from January 2020. Median income has risen only 23% in the same time frame putting the dream of homeownership out of reach for many Americans as per the latest report from Zillow.

Rampant Inflation Caused Asset Prices to Increase

Fed Raised Interest Rates to Tackle Inflation

The landscape of housing affordability has dramatically transformed in the past four years, with the monthly mortgage payment for a typical U.S. home almost doubling to $2,188, marking a 96.4% increase. Mortgage rates started at a manageable 3.5% in January 2020 and have since climbed to over 8% and currently at 6.6%

Wage Growth Not Keeping Pace With Rising Prices

The wage growth has failed to keep pace with these rising costs. In 2020, a household earning $59,000 could afford a home without spending more than 30% of its income on mortgage payments. Today, a household would need to earn around $106,500 to afford the same. The typical U.S. household income is around $81,000.

. . .

sv_isara · 05-03-2024, 18:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shanachie

...You are not a sailor or a boater if your vessel has not moved for a year or more, you dump sewage into environmentally sensitive water, you have two inches of barnacles on the bottom and you create an eyesore for those living on land.

You are a homeless person.

Ah yes, the teenage girl "eww that's gross" logic. Not just you, but from so many. But, you say later in your post that you're "verging on libertarian". Might want to google that one, because legislating lifestyles (and the judgement upon them) is the opposite of libertarian. Liberal (these days), sure.

I agree that there are certain standards that may need to be upheld, like sh**ing in public. But having an ugly boat, car, or sweater next to a mansion shouldn't be included in an argument to kick out a liveaboard. It sure is a validation for our ego though! All those endless hours in the office missing hanging out with your kids is justified!

I don't agree that everyone *must* get some sh**-tastic job just to get by. While I personally support getting a job in the sense of determining a way to give back to society...I don't support legislating it, including creating an over-regulated, overpriced society where those who can't work in IT or whatever suffer. BTW - I worked in IT. Easy money. I've also employed 100s in business that I've created.

Lastly, if I had a kid living in SF, and he got a standard job out of Uni as a ho-hum PM making say $130k/year, I would wholeheartedly support him living out of a van/car/boat - as an experiment at least. I would throw back at you that those who pay $2-3k/month for the comfort of a *single* room in a *shared* apartment in that circumstance may be the ones who need their heads checked. Oh, except that that alternative living must be made illegal, right? So now the kid needs to compete with housing investment funds. For the good of society right?

Both sides of the political spectrum screw over anyone who wants to live their lives in a nontraditional way - the left over-regulates and drastically increases prices of everything and makes business difficult to do and create, and the right wing is (also) in bed with big business who are already at the top of the pyramid, making starting at the bottom that much more difficult.

Anyway, I kinda digress. Put in the mooring field, sounds right to me, liveaboards notwithstanding. I might head over there one day, and I'd like to check out the bahamas and maybe Florida. That said, I think there's a lot of self-congradulations more than there is data on the condemnation of the liveaboards. Based on how much plastic trash I picked up yesterday, I can't help but wonder what a holistic condemnation -say on the environmental front which is being used here- on the differing lifestyles of your average middle class bloke and a homeless person would reveal.

Shanachie · 05-03-2024, 18:26

The problem in South Florida is not a shortage of housing so much as an excess of people.

There are what, 8 million people stuffed into a small stretch of coast and islands between West Palm Beach and Key West? A large chunk of the Everglades has already been covered with houses.

High prices and costly insurance are the market's answer to everyone trying to crowd into paradise.

At best, the folks living on junk boats in free anchorages are people with Lexus tastes and Corvair budgets trying to beat the system because they can't afford the price of entry.

You see the same thing happening in Colorado, New York, LA, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and just about every other desirable place to live. Tents on sidewalks, etc.

Damn. Somebody has to live in Iowa. If you don't have much money, it's probably a good place to live.

sv_isara · 05-03-2024, 19:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shanachie

The problem in South Florida is not a shortage of housing so much as an excess of people.

There are what, 8 million people stuffed into a small stretch of coast and islands between West Palm Beach and Key West? A large chunk of the Everglades has already been covered with houses.

High prices and costly insurance are the market's answer to everyone trying to crowd into paradise.

At best, the folks living on junk boats in free anchorages are people with Lexus tastes and Corvair budgets trying to beat the system because they can't afford the price of entry.

You see the same thing happening in Colorado, New York, LA, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and just about every other desirable place to live. Tents on sidewalks, etc.

Damn. Somebody has to live in Iowa. If you don't have much money, it's probably a good place to live.

Start by getting rid of absurd legislation and nimby-ism - there's plenty of space in the bay. Many environmentalists advocate that not only is it efficient to house many in a specific area, the bay is quite apt as it requires no AC, and very little heat. Yet -as of a few years ago, the filing fees and planning costs alone in Sonoma county for an ADU (north of SF) were something like > $40k - this is before you'd buy your first 2x4 or hammer in your first nail. It's since been reduced, probably one of the only fees that has. But hey, every road is getting repaved every year, and the bathrooms in the park are squeaky clean. It's sure a nice place to live, but we pay for it and defacto kick those out who can't afford it.

It's frustrating because the politics and sentiments of those who do it is elitist with delusions of benevolence. I think the environmental impact is simply the bullying tactic here more than a coherent argument. I think limiting availablity of an anchorage to a community has much more weight, yet what is being advertised here and all over is more the "eww I don't like it kick them out" mentality. Do we compare the environmental impact of these accusations to our own environmental impact??

I'm all for re-homing the homeless camps that block our sidewalks, and maybe our waterways. But if we're doing it, let's do it for the right reasons, not because we need to congratulate ourselves for being "average" unlike a dirty liveaboard.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

All that the 37 of 39 boats passing the discharge test is that on 37 the head discharged into a tank and not straight into the water. The question is - what happens to it after that?

But this is a US thing and 39 boats discharging into the water is all a smoke and mirrors thing.

Ever see a manatee poop???

Do those homeless manatees even have jobs?

I had my boat on the multnomah Channel in Oregon. I had to dive on the boat, amongst the 100s' of dirty liveaboards there. My hair was sticking straight up when I got out. Yummy.
But hey - the money ain't there, so I don't hear of much political action against these horrible pooping humans there.

Island Time O25 · 05-03-2024, 20:48

The "pollution" canard is easily resolved if there is a political will for an obvious solution.

In our moring field, Salem Harbor, there are about 2,800 moorings among about 8 or so towns. The field is served by several towns' pumpout boats. Post Covid they only work Fri-Sun. The pump outs are free, paid by Federal and State grants. If one town's boat is out of service the other towns cover their route. The pump outs are done on demand, no limits per day or week, other than their working ours. The kids running the pumpout boats, on top of their wages, get good tips, usually at least $5 a boat, many times more. Plus, I believe, the hours worked count toward their various marine related licenses, etc. So everyone's happy and the upshot - the harbor is clean enough to swim, fish and whatnot.

Florida does not have to re-invent the wheel, just copy what already works well here.

GreenWave · 06-03-2024, 04:03

shanachie nailed it. If you can’t afford one place go somewhere else. Wyoming has plenty of space too. And SanFran does suffer from overpopulation. It is why the housing has been so much there. Simple supply and demand. Basic economics.