Dockage fees at East Creek are going up next year to cover debt for capital improvements

Dockage fees at the town’s East Creek Marina in South Jamesport will be going up, if the Riverhead Town Board approves a proposal aired at Thursday’s work session.

Without the increase, the marina will have an operating deficit in two years, its reserve funds will be completely depleted and taxpayers will be subsidizing the marina’s operation, according to Councilman George Gabrielsen, who brought the issue before the board and advocates raising the rates.

Dockage at the town marina is currently $60 per foot, which is half of dockage fees currently being charged at local private marinas, Gabrielsen said.

Marina revenues fell shy of projected expenses in 2012 by a little more than $2,300, and the marina’s operating fund balance stands at $205,000.

Beginning in 2013, the town will be paying back a $1.5 million bond issued to fund capital improvements at the marina. Debt service on the borrowing will be $113,000 next year, rising to $137,000 in 2014 and then gradually declining over the next decade, according to a spreadsheet Gabrielsen distributed to board members.

The annual debt service will put the marina operation in the red and require supplementation from taxpayers, unless the town raises docking fees, the councilman said.

Following a discussion with recreation superintendent Ray Coyne and assessor Mason Haas, who docks a boat at the marina and has served as a liaison between the marina and the town government, board members agreed to raise docking fees to $65 per foot in 2013, $75 per foot in 2014, $83 per foot in 2015 and $90 per foot in 2016.

Riverhead Town formerly leased the marina to a private operator. It entered a 20-year lease with Lighthouse Marina of Jamesport Inc. in 1982. Lighthouse assigned the least to Richard and Maureen Smith in 1989. In September 2002, the town declared Smith in default of his obligations under the lease and planned to issue a request for proposals to find a new private operator. At that point, boaters who rented dockage there, including Haas — who was not an elected official at that time — came to the town board and asked the town to take over operation of the facility. Town board members were initially reluctant but eventually a majority of the board agreed to do it.

Dockage at the marina was $60 per foot when the town took over operation from Smith in 2002. Private marinas were charging $72-$85 per foot at the time, Haas told the town board at an October 2002 meeting.

Boaters who rent at the town marina point out that it is not a full-service marina like most of the private concerns that charge $120 or more per foot. It doesn’t offer winter storage, repairs or gasoline, they say.

It’s not fair to compare the town marina to to full service marinas, Haas said.

Other municipalities offer marinas facilities to residents at rates more affordable than those charged by private marinas, Haas said. Brookhaven Town charges $64 per foot on the sound, and $54 per foot on the bay, Haas told the board. Islip charges $58 per foot, he said.

Councilman James Wooten noted that there are nearly 300 people on a waiting list for dockage at East Creek and said he is concerned about the town competing with private businesses.

Supervisor Sean Walter said he believes the town needs to raise the fees sufficient to pay off the debt service and ensure that the marina maintains a 15-percent fund balance.

Gabrielsen said he objects to town taxpayers subsidizing the marina. Boaters who use the facility should pay fees that will cover all associated costs, he said.

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