Cda May Charge Boaters Panel Recommends Third Street Launch Fees And Ban On Commercial Use Of Boat Docks

Unpublished correction: The name of Higgens Point is misspelled in this story. This information is from the Idaho Department of Parks & Recreation.

Riding the boat wake of the future, city officials are contemplating user fees for the Third Street boat launching site.

The state Parks and Recreation Department started charging boaters a $2 user fee to launch from the state’s Higgins Point boat ramp two weeks ago.

It’s the first government agency to start charging for launching facilities on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

“So far, so good,” said state park ranger Jim Richards. “But the water’s been so high, we haven’t had many customers.”

The Bureau of Land Management does not charge for use of its Wolf Lodge boat ramp, but its development plan for a boat launching site on Blackwell Island calls for user fees.

A joint city and Kootenai County committee has recommended that the city consider charging launch fees in 1998 for recreational boaters at the Third Street ramp.

The county maintains the boat facilities that are on the city’s property. The facilities were built with state grant money.

As for immediate changes at the launching site, the committee has recommended a formal ban on commercial use of public docks - a recommendation that the county waterways board proposed last year.

“The ones we’ve tried to restrict and send away are the ones who set up business there,” said Sandy Emerson, a committee member.

Restaurant boats, personal watercraft rental businesses and water-skiing lessons are among the kinds of business ventures being operated on public property.

“We’ve had people with rental boats pulling up and parking there just to rent it out,” Emerson said. “That space should be reserved for the recreational boater.”

The committee agreed that “incidental” use - such as loading and unloading of people or materials - should be allowed, but not unregulated.

Damaged sidewalks caused by cranes lifting sailboats from the Third Street seawall launched the work of the joint committee.

“That particular damage issue brought a lot of things to a head,” Emerson said. City officials are awaiting the results of an engineering study on the seawall to see whether it’s structurally sound.

The committee suggested that the occasional heavy equipment commercial use be regulated so that it’s not conflicting with the recreation crowd.

A reservation system, fees and a designated area for heavy equipment use are options that the City Council may consider for this boating season.

City parks director Doug Eastwood said the boat launch area doesn’t require much upkeep, but “now we have costs to replace the damage that occurred when the crane companies crushed our sidewalks.”

Among other changes suggested for this season are:

Installation of a sign that explains rules and regulations for boating and lake access.

An agreement between the city of Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County for law enforcement around the Third Street launch area.

Moving personal watercraft rental businesses to a less-crowded part of the lake, such as Higgins Point.

The committee’s chairman, Mike McDowell, said the issue of charging recreational boaters a launch fee won’t be addressed until next season. The fee would be for maintenance and upkeep of the boat launch area.

“We had some pretty serious discussion of the pros and cons,” McDowell said. Most public comment was against the fees, but some citizens requested that out-of-county boaters be charged a higher fee than locals, he said.

“That would need legal review,” he said.

Aside from the Third Street boat ramp, the county has not proposed any user fees for its facilities, Emerson said.

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