COMMENT NOW BEFORE NOVEMBER 21ST - DON’T LET YOUR HARBOR ‘SLIP’ AWAY!
Subsequent Environmental Impact Report – Waterside Development/Revitalization
The County’s plan is to strip boaters of 40% of their parking, deny the community “trued up” numbers of dry boat storage parking and wet slips, eliminate slips, and expand the stores and restaurants. Expanding the stores and restaurants virtually guarantees that there is not enough land to provide boater parking to build out the desperately needed slips in the East Anchorage. Just in case that is not enough, they are dragging out the replacement of the slips for as long as possible so that all available funds can be used to build the expanded stores and restaurants. Even though the vast majority of those funds, over 75%, come from the boaters, it is the boaters who will be stuck with massive slip fees to replace the docks and back the store and restaurant bonds.
It is for these very reasons that Boaters for Dana Point Harbor remain committed in our advocacy for boaters. The County has built a power coalition of their stakeholders, paid lobbyists and on board consultants. With their help, they are actively attempting to freeze us out of meetings, label us “Dissident Boaters” and hope we go away. With YOUR continued support, we will not go away and will continue to challenge and work to eliminate the worst elements of the County’s plan. Dana Point Harbor is first and foremost a harbor, not an (Irvine) Spectrum by the Sea. Please join the dissident Boaters for Dana Point Harbor and submit your comments on the SEIR. This is your chance to push back, don’t let it “slip” away.
Respectfully,
Boaters for Dana Point Harbor
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Second Possessory
Interest and Boat Tax Workshop: Click here for details
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Boater Parking - Harsh Reality
We hope you all made it down to your boat and were able to enjoy some down time on the water with your friends and family. For many of us, access to our boats was particularly problematic and is the purpose of this blog. We are asking for your help so that we can work on your behalf to improve the parking situation in the future.
We need your feedback and experiences. What worked, what didn't, and what do you think should be done to improve Independence Day in the harbor. Please provide this feedback now, while the details are still fresh in your mind. You can get this feedback to us using any of the following methods. Your choice, but please don't let your story or thought die with "back to work Tuesday".
4th of July Holiday Weekend Parking Feedback Methods
· Post on Facebook Page
· Post on Yahoo Group Site
· Email us at: BruceHeyman@cox.net
· Fax us at: (949) 489-8352
· Drop us a letter:
Boaters for Dana Point Harbor
P.O. Box 3137
Dana Point, CA 92675
Why is this important? Because with the Revitalization plan essentially approved, boater parking will never be as good as it was this weekend! The County and City have charted a course based on commercial expansion of the stores, restaurants and hotels (the city has been quietly moving ahead to create a new hotel that will be up to five stories at the entrance to the harbor). Of course the vast majority of the funding for this expansion will be either coming directly from boaters' wallets and/or guaranteed by boaters' wallets. To be able to get this plan by the Coastal Commission, the City and the County spent 100's of thousands of dollars creating a dream team of lobbyists and officials who made sure the course to expansion would be approved despite constituency objections. A key ingredient was proving to the Coastal Commission that there was enough parking for all of the new stores, restaurants, Catalina Express and the expanded hotel. As the current design of the harbor, and the currently permitted parking level is one(1) space per slip, it was their choice to convince the regulators that we only need 0.6 parking spaces per slip.
We believe this weekend and some simple math will help us understand the critical nature of this situation. Assume for a moment that the Harbor Department's number of recreational slips is accurate at 2409. Then under the original and permitted design of the harbor, there are approximately 2400 slip-boater parking spaces. This weekend we saw for the first time in the history of the harbor several parking lots that had to close down a full day before the 4th of July. In the case of the East Island Boater Parking lot this was the direct result of parking 77 to 108 Catalina Express customer cars in the lot. A relatively small number of cars but a very severe impact on boater access to their vessels. Under the new Revitalization plan, the County will be allowed to strip a total of 934 parking spaces away from boaters, creating a problem exponentially worse than what we saw this weekend. All in the name of commercial expansion of the harbor's business concessions.
Please take the time to provide your feedback and thoughts to make sure that this does not become our new reality. If you would like to be part of the solution vs. being a victim of overreaching government and development, please let us know how you would like to help.
[Several people have asked us who they could write or call. A couple people have posted contact details of relevant officials to discuss parking with on our Facebook Page. Click on this link to go to our Facebook page (don't forget to "LIKE" the page.]
Welcome to the Website dedicated to moving the Dana Point Harbor Revitalization forward. While it has taken many years to get here, we may be in the home stretch to obtaining the approvals that we need from the California Coastal Commission that would allow us to update our harbor.
Hopefully you will find all of the tools that you need to stay current, get involved, and help us move this project forward.
When the California Coastal Commission considers LCPA 03-06 there are three possible outcomes.
- The Commission Denies the LCPA – Bad for Boaters
- The Commission Approves the LCPA exactly as submitted (almost never happens) – Worse than bad for Boaters
- The Commission Approves the LCPA with amendments (if approved they are almost always amended) – Best for Boaters and Community
We feel that Outcome number 1 would be very bad for boaters and the community at large and hope that no one is focusing on this possibility. Outcome number 2 is even worse than number 1 because it allows so many recreational boating resources for the community to be removed and replaced with business and commercial interests. Clearly the best alternative is to encourage and support the Coastal Commission with amending the LCPA so that the community can continue to have a recreational harbor that not only serves boaters but is exciting for non-boating visitors.
Please join us in supporting the Dana Point Harbor Revitalization.
Bruce Heyman
Founder and Leader
Boater for Dana Point Harbor
Founder, First President & Former Advisor
Dana Point Boaters Association
