I hope everyone had a terrific Thanksgiving! The next meeting of the Park and Marina Coalition is in Tigard on Tuesday, December 10th, 9am – 12pm at Multifamily NW.
The first Park and Marina Landlord Tenant Coalition Meeting of the next major legislative session (2021) met earlier this month and went well. Many people shared ideas of what we could focus on between now and the 2021 legislative session.
As you can imagine, I did bring up a list of issues and concerns that marina tenants face, both issue which didn’t get a chance to be discussed last year due to time (remember this was our first time having an official voice in the Coalition) or issues that have come up since we dropped our initial bill in the Oregon State Legislature.
Proposed list of issues :
- Rent increases
- Security deposit caps
- First Months rent caps
- Incentives for Landlords to sell the marina to tenants (park tenants have these benefits, marina tenant do not)
- Tougher penalties for Landlord interference with the sale of residents’ floating homes
- Increased statute of limitations for ORS Chapter 90 violations (currently 1 year)
- Dock/ramp maintenance
- Board repairs
- Snow and ice removal
- Moss/buildup removal
- Dock lighting
- Dredging
- Wake protection
- Parking restrictions
- Piling maintenance
- Recreational water use protections
- Swim ladders
- Fire safety equipment, pump testing, fire evacuation plans, fire safety training, etc.
There are only so many issues that we can work through in any given lead-up to the next major legislative session. After reviewing our list of marina issues with the Coalition, we decided that we can make the most impact within our limited time on a few:
- Habitability – there are already Oregon Statute laws requiring a landlord maintain common area in good working order. The laws specifically call out items such as providing water and fuel, keeping common grounds maintained for normal use, solid land for manufactured houses to be located on, etc. Even though they apply to use, they are written with a land-based-house focus. The statutes don’t necessarily call out ramps, docks, the life or death implications of snow/ice removal, or floating home spaces protected from wakes. And while it does require “safety from the hazards of fire” it does not call out the need for marina fire systems and water pumps. However, I routinely hear from floating home owner tenants about habitability – docks in disrepair, missing or broken deck boards, loose nails, and lack of any useable fire equipment (which also causes floating home insurance companies to pass along that risk in the form of increase premiums at moorages without enough fire fighting tools). We all know that common area maintenance or lack thereof can cause death and significant loss of property due to docks being in disrepair or lack of fire fighting equipment. Let’s change that.
- Parking – Unlike park tenants, marina tenants (by the very nature of living on the water), we all park in a common area parking lot – we are at the mercy of the landlord about our vehicles, how many we can have, what condition they have to be in, what we can do with our cars int eh parking lot, restrictions on washing cars or performing light maintenance on them, where we can park without getting towed, etc. It has been reported to me that some landlords are using the assignment of parking spaces and the regulation of guest and service provider parking as a way to interfere with tenants use of the premises – including one landlord who assigned a tenant a space under a wire where flocks of birds congregate (the tenant’s vehicle is a constant mess) and the landlord refuses to assign the tenant a different available space. Apartment tenants have more rights regrading common area parking than marina tenants. We should look into changing this.
- Recreational water use rights – It is a no-brainer that floating home owners purchase houses on water because they like being on the water. Many of us boat, fish, canoe, paddle and sail away from our houses on a regular basis. However, our right to park a boat at our marina to not protected by our residential leases. Landlords can prevent a home owner from having a boat onsite, or terminate a boat lease as a means of driving out a tenant. We would like our boat leases/permissions to be protected from evictions by the same rights we have as home owners – 30 day notice for a legal case AND the right to cure the problems and keep our boat on site. For many of us, without the ability to enjoy our hobbies and lifestyle on the water, what’s the point of being in that marina? Let’s make a stand together on this very reasonable right and fight this from being used as a tool for constructive evictions.
You may have an important issue that is not on this list – it may even be one of the other 12 or so issues that are near and dear to my heart which did not get chosen for this legislative session. The Coalition likely cannot address additional issues during this next legislative session. However, please let me know if you are having other important issues, and maybe I can offer advice on where to go or how to approach the issue.
If you are experiencing one of the issues mentioned above, let me know. Better yet, come to the Coalition meetings and make your voices heard. It is uncertain at this time is we will get our own Marina Subcommittee to address marina only issue like we had last year. So come and participate, weigh in on ideas for our next bill.
We will be discussing the Habitability issue with a focus on Marinas on December 10th at the Tigard location. The other meetings which affect both marinas and park tenants tend to be in Salem, but we will try to time the marina-only issues to coincide with the Tigard meeting dates.
Be sure to make a note of the other dates below for future Coalition meetings.
We passed a MAJOR piece of legislation to protect marina tenants this year…now we have the opportunity to do more. Let’s do this!!
I am grateful for everyone on this mailing list who has supported our efforts to improve the floating home owner lifestyle.