Wave Of Anger Float Home Owners Harbor Complaints Against The State For A Plan To Charge Them Yearly Rent
It was the perfect retirement gift, and she gave it to herself.
B.J. Hull’s home is bright and warm, with walls of sunny-yellow knotty pine. The view is wonderful. Lake Pend Oreille is a blue shimmer all around, mountains tower dark and jagged in the distance.
Look again. That backdrop is still gorgeous - but it’s gently pitching up and down.
“They are nice,” Hull said of her floating home, which bobs atop the lake. She has a boat house for a garage, a dock for a sidewalk. “You have to get used to the motion. It took my dog awhile.”
Hull and other Idaho floating home owners may have to get used to something even tougher to stomach than seasickness - forking over $1,000 every year to the state.
About 100 of the float home owners crammed into the Bayview Community Center on Sunday, pleading their case to a panel of state officials. Attorney General Alan Lance was there, so was Anne Fox, the state superintendent of public instruction. Both are on the state Land Board.
Money from the proposed new fee would go to public schools.
Marina owners would pay about $1,000 for each home moored at their docks. Individual float home owners would pay the fee directly if they live outside a commercial marina.
Either way, float home owners complain that they’re being unfairly targeted, and are asking why stand-alone boat houses and private docks aren’t being considered for the new fees.
Some owners say they’re retired and on fixed incomes and can’t afford to pay. And in Bayview, owners already pay personal property taxes to the county.
Hull pays about $2,000 a year in mooring costs, and $850 per year in county taxes.
Nothing was resolved Sunday, but officials got an earful. And Kootenai County Clerk Dan English was on the giving end. He owns a Bayview float home.
“Most folks don’t mind doing their share, as long as they know it’s fair and equitable,” English said. If it’s good for float home owners, he reasoned, it’s good for everyone - private dock owners included. Make more people pay the fee, he suggested, but make it smaller.
But English - and others who spoke - implied the state doesn’t just want their money, it wants them out. They fear the state wants to make float boats so expensive that no one will want one. The state hasn’t approved any new float homes in the last 20 years.
“I would hope the state’s priority is to preserve and protect (float homes), rather than target them for economic extinction,” English said. The owners say their homes are historically important. Many date back to the ‘20s and ‘30s.
These days, Bayview’s float homes are connected to water and sewer services. Floating Home Association attorney Dennis Davis said they’re no longer an environmental ill, and are better for the lake than boats.
And just a handful of people, like Hull, live on the lake all year. She has to pump her water from the lake during the winter months; her marina shuts off her water service. That trend of seasonal-only use is another reason the home owners say they shouldn’t pay extra.
Controller J.D. Williams said float home owners, though, may get more use of the lake than logging operators or those who own a boat house.
“The board members feel we should receive some compensation,” Williams said.
The Land Board may announce its decision in November. But no deadline has been set.
Until then, people like Hull will just have to bob along. And wait.
“It’s big, especially for a flat fee,” Hull said. “I don’t feel they should pass it on to marina owners. That’s not fair. I think most of us would pay something. But $1,000? Gosh!”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo