Moorage concerns generate response
BOISE – Attorneys for a North Idaho developer say state officials’ concerns over possible “dock-o-miniums” or sales of boat moorage rights on state-owned lakes are merely a matter of “semantic confusion,” and that the developer knows he can’t sell boat slips.
“Individuals looking at the idea, including my client, have often talked about an ‘ownership’ interest in a slip vs. a ‘rental’ of a slip,” Coeur d’Alene attorney Steve Wetzel wrote in a letter to acting Gov. Jim Risch. This, he said, has been a “source of continuous confusion.”
Risch, in an interview with The Spokesman-Review this week, said the issue is more than semantics.
“I view the words ‘ownership’ vs. ‘rental’ (as) substantially more than semantic – it has clear legal connotations that about anyone, including a title company, would have a clear understanding (of),” said Risch, an attorney.
Risch and other members of the state Land Board spoke out strongly against the idea at a meeting last week, and Risch said anyone who tried to sell something that actually belongs to the state would be perpetrating a “scam.”
Asked if he still views the concept as a scam, Risch said, “I don’t know – the way it was presented at the board certainly struck me that way. … I’d want to know a little more about what’s being said in the advertising.”
The Land Board was considering moorage rates for float homes, which have been soaring, along with other marina issues, including a letter from a North Idaho couple who said they were being asked to consider purchasing the moorage rights for their float home for $100,000 to $200,000 by Hayden developer Bob Holland, Wetzel’s client.
Wetzel said in his letter to Risch that Holland has stopped using that wording. “Use of this vernacular by Bob Holland has now ended,” Wetzel wrote.
Risch said that matters. “This letter indicates they corrected what I thought was the biggest problem, which was the use of the word ‘ownership,’” he said.
Risch said, “There was a report to the Land Board that somebody was selling something that belonged to the state. … They can’t sell something that belongs to the people of the state of Idaho.”
He added, “If a potential buyer called the state and said, ‘Hey, I’m buying a slip up there – do I own it?’ The answer would be, ‘No, you don’t own it.’”
The Land Board, which consists of the state’s top elected officials, expressed concerns about future policies for marinas on state-owned lakes, which the board is responsible for managing for public use.
Marinas operate on renewable 10-year leases from the state. The state can raise rents to marina operators with 180 days’ notice.
Wetzel told Risch in his letter that Holland is being threatened with losing all his financing for development projects because of publicity over the issue.
Risch dismissed that. “I suspect that the financers are substantially more sophisticated than that,” he said. “I’d be surprised … if the financers weren’t aware that they were dealing with a lease rather than a deed.”
Wetzel said his client’s proposals had been misunderstood, and they technically involve selling the marina itself to a group of shareholders. “A simple way that most people understand is ownership vs. rental, but the legal documents which actually set up the organization, there is an ownership component but it’s an ownership in a membership. And then the members as tenants can rent back from the nonprofit organization,” he said. “No one can buy the state’s property.”
Land Board members voted unanimously to both negotiate more reasonable rental rates for now and take a long-term look at marinas on state-owned lakes with an eye toward reforms, especially since their value has increased so much in recent years.
Risch said all Land Board members agreed that they need to work toward a balance between a return to the state and keeping publicly owned lakes open to public use.”It is very apparent to me that the long-term use of the marinas, boat slips, the lake bed and all that should be reviewed,” Risch said. “Clearly it’s been a long time.”