Float home moorage rates to remain ‘reasonable’

BOISE – The state’s top elected officials rejected a proposal Tuesday to eliminate a requirement that float homes on Idaho lakes be charged “reasonable” rents, buoying a relieved contingent of North Idaho float home owners.

Instead, the Idaho Land Board voted unanimously to direct the state Department of Lands to enforce the “reasonable” rents rule by writing it into future marina leases; ask the Legislature to re-examine the state law that governs float homes to make it more fair as far as rental rates; and conduct an economic analysis of the whole issue.

“Everybody wants to do the right thing,” Gov. Butch Otter said after he and the rest of the Land Board wrestled with the issue for nearly two hours. “I don’t want to hurt the person that bought, that recapitalized the land. But on the other hand, we don’t want to abandon and leave (float home owners) victim to whatever economic mischief may be in the offing.”

Jamie Berube, secretary of the Floating Homes Association and owner of a Bayview float home with her family, said, “It was like, finally they understood what we were talking about. … There really is no place to go, and it sounds like they finally are getting it.”

Float home owners in Bayview have complained that some marina owners have sharply upped their rates and are demanding they pay large sums to “buy” their slips or be evicted.

Otter said he prefers to let the free market decide such issues. But, he said, “We have limited the market.” In 1998, Idaho cut off all new permits for floating homes on state-owned lakes, limiting them to the 200 then existing on lakes Pend Oreille and Coeur d’Alene. That’s also when the state set the “reasonable” rents rule.

Bayview float home owner Robert Brooke told the Land Board, “Faced with exorbitant rate increases, the float home owner has nowhere else to go. … You’re faced with 94 float home owners in Bayview not having any protection.”

State Superintendent of Schools Tom Luna, a member of the Land Board, said that when he was first faced with the issue last month, he favored a free-market approach. But since then, he’s learned that virtually all the waterfront in Bayview that’s not too steep for building already is taken up either by existing marinas or the Navy, and that the state has limited the number of float homes.

“I’m trying to determine if there’s an opportunity for a free market to exist,” Luna said. “If the answer is a free-market solution, then it can’t be a partial move.”

Bayview marina owner Chan Karupiah urged the board to let the market set moorage rates. “Allow the free market to correct itself,” Karupiah said. The state’s cap on float homes has increased the homes’ value, he said. If marinas could charge whatever they want, he said, “There’ll be much more float home sites being made, and people will be moving left and right.”

Others disputed that and said the market for float home moorages is shrinking because of the limited number of the homes, the expense and difficulty of moving them, and extensive requirements that each be attached to an onshore sewer system.

Otter said, “It’d be very tempting to just say, ‘OK, you guys fight it out and let the marketplace decide.’ But we’ve already mucked about the marketplace.”

All but one of the state’s marina leases that include float home moorages are up for renewal this year, which would allow the state to add the new requirement for “reasonable” rents to the new leases. At least one already contains that requirement. The one lease that’s not up this year, for Boileau’s Marina in Bayview, is up for renewal in 2009.

Otter said the state must recognize its role in the issue, its responsibility to protect public access to state-owned lakes, and the added value that marina leases give to upland owners.

State Controller Donna Jones, who chaired a subcommittee that recommended doing away with the “reasonable” rent clause, said, “My charge was to tell what time it was, not build the clock.” The issue is highly complex, she noted – adding that she was resigning from the subcommittee.

Said Otter, “The obvious frustration each of us has with this tells me that there will be a solution. … I would not read what we’re doing here as favoring one side or the other. I would read it as trying to find a solution that is fair.”