Mooring fees to increase

If you keep a boat on a city mooring or own a home with a dock in Newport Beach, you’ve been getting a heck of a deal.

There’s no question that’s going to change, partly to generate more money for tidelands, which are coastal areas owned by the public but managed by government agencies like the city of Newport Beach.

In the next few months, city officials will consider how much to raise fees or charge for leases of tideland amenities such as moorings, residential docks and commercial piers.

Some are far out of line with fair market rates — for example, homeowners with docks pay the city a $97 permit fee each year, but some will then charge several thousand dollars a year to rent the dock to a boat owner.

An Orange County Grand Jury report in May suggested the city should be charging what the market will bear for moorings.

When the city charges too little or gets no cut at all of transactions on tidelands, it’s not just the bureaucrats who lose out — it’s boaters and beachgoers. That’s because the money generated by the use of tidelands goes to a special fund that pays for services that benefit the public — beach maintenance, lifeguard salaries, and dredging, for example.

“I think there’s a consensus that our harbor has a number of needs that aren’t being met comprehensively right now, and each of those needs is going to cost a significant amount of money,” Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

So what exactly are tidelands? They’re generally lands along the coast that may be submerged at high tide or were once underwater, but through human interference have been made into dry land.

In Newport Beach, they’re a mixed bag that includes the harbor and ocean beaches, commercial properties like the Balboa Bay Club, and private residential developments such as portions of Beacon Bay.

The city does charge permit fees for docks and moorings, money comes in from parking near the water, and some businesses that operate within tidelands — the American Legion’s marina, for example — pay for leases.

In fact, between the lease and the hotel bed tax, sales tax and property tax, the Balboa Bay Club is the city’s single largest source of revenue, city revenue manager Glen Everroad said.

The Bay Club, however, may be the exception. The city doesn’t charge fuel dock operators anything, while a recent study showed many coastal cities charge fuel docks 5% of sales.

Some businesses haven’t been subject to leases, and mooring fees were found to be far below market rates.

All told, the city is expected to take in $9.4 million in tidelands-related profits this fiscal year.

But another study calculates the cost of services to tidelands at about $21 million, leaving a $10 million-plus deficit that Kiff said is made up from the city’s general fund.

That money will be needed for major projects like clean-up of the polluted Rhine Channel and dredging in the Lower Newport Bay, as well as minor, ongoing tasks such as maintenance of the city’s two piers and maintenance of some beaches.

Studies on the market value of city waterfront amenities and the cost of servicing tidelands have been completed, and two university economists are about to analyze the data to put it all in perspective for the city.

One result likely will be a fee hike, and city officials are bracing for complaints.

“I imagine that there will be some that are not going to be happy,” Mayor Steve Rosansky said. “If anything they’ve been getting a bargain. They’ve been saving money at our expense all these years.”

But that additional money can be leveraged to get state and federal funding for major projects like the multi-million-dollar lower bay dredging, Kiff said.

“This is a harbor that is not just Newport Beach’s harbor,” he said. “It is used by people not just countywide and statewide, but maybe nationwide.”