Proposed anchoring legislation for Florida

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Woodland Hills

So what you are saying is that instead of requiring a living wage or affordable housing for low wage workers we should allow the working poor to live in floating slums? Isn’t that simply shifting the burden from profit making businesses onto the general tax paying public who are the actual owners of the anchorage?

This underscores the point that a large part of the long-term anchor-outs problem is just the unresolved housing problem. Homelessness and poverty are problems everywhere. At some point, tourism-based "destinations" have to shoulder their contribution to the problem by making some provision for staff housing. Cheap apartments, dorms, whatever.

[dwedeking2]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I've no horse in this game, although as a general rule I dislike seeing any restrictions on anchoring. But I also recognize that recreational anchoring is different from taking up permanent residence at one spot.

In Canada, and I presume the USA, public waterways are there for all to enjoy. They are public, therefore no one gets to claim exclusive use of them. Not the boater, and certainly not the rich owner of some fancy hotel. So why not treat public waterways similar to the way public lands are treated?

In Ontario, Canada, a citizen has the right to camp for free on Crown Land (that is otherwise not being utilized for other purposes). But that right is limited to three weeks (21 days) at any one location. This ensures everyone gets a crack at using and enjoying a specific location. Permanently anchoring in one location would be the equivalent of me building a house on Crown Land. That would be unfair for everyone else.

In the USA I know your public lands have more complexity to their usage, but they all come with limitations regarding how long people can remain on them. I see no reason why anchoring in public waterways shouldn't be treated similarly. Maybe with different time limits, but the principle seems sound to me

I can see your argument for places like the east coast of florida where the population density is so extreme and the anchorages limited.

This legislation was started and promoted by a local key west hotel owner.

Anchoring in Key West does not limit recreational boating in any way shape or form. Anchoring is limited (due to local conditions) around Wisteria (Christmas Island), near Fleming Key (not used much), Cow Channel (where the hotel of this owner sits) and Boca Chica Key (the slums). The pump out program limits pollution as an issue (and the high volume of water turn over in those areas makes the pollution issue a moot point anyways).

The issue is solely "I paid a million dollars for this view, move those poors".

In Key West there is a social hierarchy:
Rich people
Middle Class people
Poor people
Homeless meth head people
People that live on a boat

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by BillKny

I am at anchor right now in SouthLake in Hollywood, FL. I have a great deal of sympathy for the homeowners here. One large motorboat (~60feet) has been anchored here for YEARS not more than 50 yards from people's backdoors. As far as I know it is immobile, certainly I have never seen it underway in the multiple visits I have made here. They run an on-deck portable generator constantly, and it is damn noisy out here on the water. You KNOW in the event of a hurricane boats like this would be crashing into the resident's docks and houses. You KNOW they are dumping sewage. There are several boats here of similar status. North Lake is WAY worse.

If I lived in one of the houses here, I'd want those boats GONE. So of course the government's answer is ban everybody. Use a sledge hammer to kill the fly.

I would 100% support a 90 day limit on anchoring in this and similar places. It seems a reasonable compromise. It is perfectly reasonable to me to require that a boat anchored in navigable waters actually be able to navigate, and requiring moving the boat once every three months seems a fair way of doing this.

I agree with the "able to navigate" and "move every three months" requirements.

Yes I understand that living on a boat, able to navigate or not, can be a cheap alternative but the natural limits on density make this a poor solution to housing of people with limited means. I also don't really support "squatting" on either public land or public waterways. Let’s keep the waterways for actual boating.

To me we need to allow use of the waterways for navigation. We also need to allow anchoring for transient vessels. This complies with the federal requirement for freedom of navigation on the country’s navigable waterways. We do not however need to provide permanent use of the public resource (the water areas) as a substitute location to place a residence, as convenient as that might be for some.

I also sympathize with the property owners who don't appreciate "boat bums" and derelict boats cluttering their views, but they need to accept that proper use of the waterway comes with the territory, I think. They have to accept that.

The total freedom for boaters to do whatever they want which might have been acceptable 50 or 100 years ago but it is much more of a problem now with increased populations both on the water and ashore.

The solution has to be some reasonable regulation which addresses the needs of boater and local communities combined with sufficient marine patrols to ensure enforcement.

So,

• Require vessel licensing and compliance with USCG requirements (new laws are not required)
• Require navigation capability
• Allow sufficient and reasonable anchoring for transient vessels
• Put limits on the duration of stays in an area where anchoring is allowed
• Require ownership identification and liability insurance against environmental damage caused by the vessel (such as going ashore or sinking in a waterway)
• Disallow unattended or abandoned vessels
• Fund and staff marine patrols to ensure that requirements are being met
• Fund at the state level for removal of derelict vessels

This also means allowing anchoring by complying vessels wherever it makes sense, and not excluding anchoring simply because a business or property owner wants to have a pristine view. You tell the business or property owner, "We'll get rid of the bums and derelicts, but you have to accept legitimate marine use for transportation, recreation, and transient anchoring."

By the way, this is not a new problem.

[smj]

Originally Posted by Woodland Hills

So what you are saying is that instead of requiring a living wage or affordable housing for low wage workers we should allow the working poor to live in floating slums? Isn’t that simply shifting the burden from profit making businesses onto the general tax paying public who are the actual owners of the anchorage?
How is asking boats to move four times a year an undue burden? Here in Marathon there has been a 30-some foot sailboat anchored a half mile off the beach for several months. Why can’t others do the same for a couple of nights and then return to the anchorage?
If the problem is that wages are too low to live on land in Key West then go elsewhere until wages improve. All people are doing now by living in the anchorage is enabling those who are exploiting them by paying crap wages.
Maybe your boss could fill those empty positions if he paid you enough to actually live in Key West.

Here in Marathon, not all that live aboard their boats at anchor and work are living in floating slums. Some of the lives boards have nice well kept boats, should they be discriminated against as well?
There’s been laws on the books for decades dealing with derelict boats, instead of making new laws that would affect more than just the derelict boat owners, why don’t they enforce the old laws?
I guess if one is ok with these new laws, they are also ok going to restaurants and taking their own orders, cooking their own food and bussing their own table as there will no longer be workers to do that for you.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by smj

Here in Marathon, not all that live aboard their boats at anchor and work are living in floating slums. Some of the lives boards have nice well kept boats, should they be discriminated against as well?

That's the equivalent of saying that long-term anchoring-out is only for those wealthy enough to meet someone else's arbitrary standards for "nice and well-kept". So, if there's to be any fairness about it, yeah you'd have to prohibit indefinite long-term anchoring-out from everyone.

Then again, what has "fair" got to do with anything?

[smj]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

That's the equivalent of saying that long-term anchoring-out is only for those wealthy enough to meet someone else's arbitrary standards for "nice and well-kept". So, if there's to be any fairness about it, yeah you'd have to prohibit indefinite long-term anchoring-out from everyone.

Then again, what has "fair" got to do with anything?

You are probably right, one mans gold plated yacht may be another mans derelict boat.

[Woodland Hills]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

That's the equivalent of saying that long-term anchoring-out is only for those wealthy enough to meet someone else's arbitrary standards for "nice and well-kept". So, if there's to be any fairness about it, yeah you'd have to prohibit indefinite long-term anchoring-out from everyone.

Then again, what has "fair" got to do with anything?

How is clean and tidy exclusively for the wealthy? How much does it cost to keep your decks clean of debris?

Can’t people afford to bend over and pickup trash on their boats and put it into a bin ashore? If the blue FEMA tarp that keeps the sun off the cockpit is degraded by UV and shredded by the wind, how much does it cost to throw it away?

We have laws on the books that can be used to compel land dwellers to mow their lawns and to force hoarders to clean out their squalor. Nobody says these are unreasonable infringements of human rights (except the offenders!), so why do some boaters think they are exempt?

Keeping your boat “shipshape and squared away” costs nothing beyond a bit of effort and self-discipline and would go a long way towards heading off the current trend towards anchoring restrictions.

One question: this does not seem to be much of a problem in the Bahamas. Why? It’s close to Florida and accessible by most any boat with a good weather report. Yet the full time cruisers I see there all seem to look shipshape despite the fuel cans lashed to the lifelines and the bikes on deck. And lots of them are on extremely small monthly budgets too.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

...The issue is solely "I paid a million dollars for this view, move those poors".

I hear ya, and completely sympathize with the plight of homeless people, or even worse, the working poor. No one should face a situation where a full-time wage does not allow one to live a reasonable lifestyle in (or at least near) the community they work. But it sounds like living on an anchored-out boat is a band-aid solution to this much bigger problem.

The issue with the richy-rich not wanting to see poor people is annoying and offensive, but this person does have as much claim to the public space as anyone. And I well understand that in the real world, money talks . But the boater who essentially squats in a public anchorage is no different in that they making a public space exclusively their own.

In areas where there are no other competing interests, then it doesn't really matter. But this doesn't sound like it is the case here.

[Davy J]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

That's the equivalent of saying that long-term anchoring-out is only for those wealthy enough to meet someone else's arbitrary standards for "nice and well-kept". So, if there's to be any fairness about it, yeah you'd have to prohibit indefinite long-term anchoring-out from everyone.

Then again, what has "fair" got to do with anything?

I love when the Oracle of Toronto chimes in...........

You could have a 50' Swan, you know, 1.6 mil, the guy in Sunset Lake, who paid 3.6 mil for house doesn't care. You are trailer park trash..........

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Woodland Hills

How is clean and tidy exclusively for the wealthy? How much does it cost to keep your decks clean of debris?
...
We have laws on the books that can be used to compel land dwellers to mow their lawns and to force hoarders to clean out their squalor. Nobody says these are unreasonable infringements of human rights (except the offenders!), so why are boaters exempt?

I hear you; I'm just saying that it's hardly an enforceable condition for permitting or restricting anchored-out liveaboards. Heck, even well-off people sometimes let their boats go to pot or abandon them.

Originally Posted by Davy J

I love when the Oracle of Toronto chimes in...........

You could have a 50' Swan, you know, 1.6 mil, the guy in Sunset Lake, who paid 3.6 mil for house doesn't care. You are trailer park trash..........

Thanks, I was trying to express that. You don't have to live in FL to see a problem with a suggestion.

[CaptBobR]

Originally Posted by denverd0n

It's all about the money. Wealthy people don't want anyone anchoring in their view. The local representatives are heavily influenced by the large number of locals who want to be able to anchor. So you go somewhere else, find a politician who has no real skin in the game, and make a sizeable donation to get him to introduce the bill.


This is how politics work, all the world around.

This is typical Florida rich area BS supported by typical political Aholes

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by IceOps

There are only two reasons for regulations -
1. Safety & Security: Someone died or got badly hurt, something was lost by errors that cost a lot and could have hurt someone.
2. Special Interests who want their way for their own Gain ($)

When thing make no logical sense, FOLLOW THE MONEY

[sailorboy1]

Some of you are just funny.

Certain Boaters made this problem. For the most part people on this thread aren't the ones, Those that haven't even see what issue is should stop commenting (in my opinion of course). As a Florida resident and full time cruiser living on my boat i support actions to clean up the waters here of boat scum. These are NOT boaters, they are just people living on a boat and who could care less about how much trash they pile on it.

Near as I can tell in Boot Key/marathon a very large percent of the anchored boats aren't even allowed on the moorings because of condition and/or they have been banned for behavior. If they lved in a car on your street i bet most would support something to stop it.

[Davy J]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Some of you are just funny.

Certain Boaters made this problem. For the most part people on this thread aren't the ones, Those that haven't even see what issue is should stop commenting (in my opinion of course).

You haven't been in this fight long enough...........

Sure there are pieces of sh!!t that would be nice to get rid of. But here are the
guys you are up against. They don't care if you re living in a 1980 27' Catalina or a 2.5 Million Marlow, They don't want you "in their backyard":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xroo-FEMzms

https://www.soundingsonline.com/feat...in-my-backyard

https://www.passagemaker.com/trawler...putation-video

[motion30]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Also, we’ll have to see how it’s enforced if it passes. It’s been my experience that the bans are selectively enforced for the most part to get derelicts and boat bums out of the picture. I’m all for that.

Not many people could argue about getting rid of the derelict boats. The issue is there is already laws on the books to address these situations and they are simply not being enforced. Right now the FWC has laws on the books that can remove these derelict boats. They just are not doing it