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By Deborah Bach

A group of British Columbia boaters is mobilizing to address issues facing liveaboards and improve the perception of them among the broader community.

The British Columbia Nautical Residents Association (BCNRA), formed last June, aims to give liveaboards more collective clout and help them connect with each other, said Rick Schnurr, one of the group’s founding members.

“Most boaters, and especially liveaboard boaters, are very much individualists,” he said. “Our goal is to have some kind of a body that’s affiliated and recognized and can help everybody speak with one voice.”

The Victoria-based association’s website lists four main goals: to preserve and support the tradition of living aboard, promote environmental awareness among liveaboards, communicate and resolve issues of concern to liveaboards and serve as a voice on issues impacting B.C. waterways.

Schnurr said the group was also formed to address what some feel is unfair treatment of liveaboards by local governments and some marina operators. As an example, Schurr cited regulations which prohibit boaters from anchoring out in Vancouver’s False Creek for longer than two weeks in summer and 40 days in winter. Boats anchored longer than the allowable time can — and have been — removed by authorities.

The regulations were implemented in 2008 after the city of Vancouver successfully lobbied the federal government to have the Canada Shipping Act amended to limit the amount of time boats can be anchored in the popular waterway.

“There’s only one place you can anchor safely (in Vancouver) and that’s False Creek,” said Bill Sassaman, a BCNRA board member.

The group says there’s a shortage of liveaboard slips throughout the province and that some liveaboards are being charged disproportionately more for marina slips than non-liveaboards. And some marinas have so many U.S.-owned boats that there isn’t room left for B.C. liveaboards, they say.

“We have marinas up here that are over half full of American boats and local people can’t get in,” Schnurr said.

Livaboards have been a contentious issue in both B.C. and Washington. Last fall, Washington state’s Department of Natural Resources, which has jurisdiction over state waterways, evicted about half a dozen boats that were moored illegally in Filucy Bay, in south Puget Sound.

In December, the City of Bainbridge Island and DNR signed a lease for an open-water marina, the state’s first, in Eagle Harbor. The agreement, which allows for up to 16 liveaboard boats in the harbor, followed a decade of acrimony and debate about how to deal with liveaboards illegally moored there, some for years.  

The Vancouver Island city of Nanaimo has also grappled with boats moored in its harbor. In 2009, the city’s port authority implemented new regulations requiring owners of boats anchored in the harbor to pay a $1 per foot monthly anchoring fee and have onboard sewage holding tanks.

The BCNRA says different regulations imposed by various communities in the province have resulted in uneven treatment of liveaboards. Group members questioned whether local governments have legal authority to enact bylaws that impact waterways, which fall under the federal Canada Shipping Act.

Washington state law prohibits boats from remaining on public property for longer than 30 days without authorization and limits marinas from allocating more than 10 percent of slips as liveaboards, though the percentage can be changed by local government.By contrast, the Canada Shipping Act has no restrictions on liveaboard boats, including the amount of time they are permitted to anchor out, said Jillian Glover, regional communications advisor for Transport Canada.

But port authorities can make local rules around anchoring, Glover said, and marinas may be affected by local government bylaws about liveaboards.

“If no bylaws exist,” she said, “marinas will set their own rules regarding liveaboard vessels and have no obligation to allow them.”

Jerry Dobrovolny, director of transportation for the city of Vancouver, said the restrictions on anchoring in False Creek were not intended to drive out liveaboards, but to address the rundown and empty boats anchored there. Some of those boats have broken loose and washed up on shore or caused damage to boats in surrounding marinas, he said.

“Many of them were derelict boats that people have picked up from somewhere with intentions of restoring them one day and living the dream,” he said. “Then they would sit there for several years.”

Dobrovolny said less than two dozen boats were removed from False Creek after the regulations were passed, but only after city officials notified their owners and worked with them to find housing or come up with alternate plans.

The intent of the regulations, he said, was to make False Creek more accessible to all boaters. The city has considered installing mooring buoys in the waterway, he said, but so far has not.

“It’s regulated so that we can make it free and available for everybody,” he said.

The BCNRA is open to anyone interested in living aboard. Annual membership costs $10. For more information or to join the association, go to its website.