Proposal for float home rent opposed

BOISE – Idaho’s top elected officials balked Tuesday at a proposal to let market forces set float home rental rates on North Idaho lakes.

After meeting with both marina owners and float home owners concerned over steep rent increases, the state Department of Lands proposed that the state Land Board wash its hands of the issue and repeal its reasonable-rent policy for float homes, which the board adopted in 1999.

Interim Lands Director George Bacon told the board Tuesday that a legal review showed the board has “no legal authority to dictate what rents might be set by private parties.”

Secretary of State Ben Ysursa was taken aback. “I know I do not like the department’s recommendation – basically it’s punt and play Pontius Pilate,” he said.

At issue are state-owned lakes; the Land Board signs leases with marina owners letting them use that publicly owned resource, Ysursa noted. The state charges marina owners $250 a year per float home site, but some marina owners are charging the float home owners that much or more per month.

“In my opinion, the deal is pretty sweet with the owners, and yet they turn around and play the market with the people that are using that,” Ysursa told the board.

Both he and state Superintendent of Schools Marilyn Howard – the two current Land Board members who served on the board in 1999 when the policy was adopted – said what matters most is the preservation of the public’s right to use state-owned lakes.

“It’s not out to make money,” Ysursa said. “The overriding concern is to provide public recreation, public access, in my mind.”

Howard said, “We’re talking about the public trust.”

Of the four North Idaho marinas with float home moorage, three are up for state lease renewals in 2007, while the fourth, Boileau’s Marina in Bayview, is up in 2009. Gov. Jim Risch said the time for the Land Board to address the issue is when the leases are renegotiated.

“What we’ve done in the current leases doesn’t appear to be working,” Risch said. “It sure seems to me that there ought to be some different arrangements in the new lease.”

Deputy Attorney General Clive Strong said, “The best thing we could do is put the lease holders on notice that when we renegotiate, that this is going to be one of the terms and conditions.”

That may prove to be sufficient leverage to bring the parties back to the table and try to resolve differences “before we have to wade in through the lease provisions,” Strong said.

Bayview float home owners complained to the Land Board last spring of sharp rent increases and proposals to “sell” them their moorage rights through pricey “dock-o-minium” plans, though marinas have just 10-year leases with the state. At that point, the Land Board asked its staff to negotiate with both sides about rental rates, but the staff reported back Tuesday that the negotiations failed to bring any agreement.

Risch suggested that once the next Land Board takes office in January it form a subcommittee to look into the issue and find solutions that could be written into new marina leases.

Ysursa then proposed putting the issue off until the February Land Board meeting to allow for further study, and his motion passed unanimously.