A large shingled houseboat was seen floating in San Francisco Bay after its owners were evicted from the nearby marina that once housed more than 100 residents.
The boat is the penultimate houseboat at the Redwood City Marina in California, after the city paid millions of dollars to residents to evict and relocate them from their houseboats, it was reported. SF Gate.
The two-story wooden house began its journey from Docktown Marina and anchored in Richardson Bay off the coast of Sausalito on Tuesday, according to local reports.
Efforts to evict residents living on board began in 2015, and the legal battle between frustrated residents of Docktown Marina and Redwood City has continued for years since.
In October of last year, the city paid more than $1 million to settle lawsuits brought by boaters, who have since left the marina after calling it home for decades.
A large shingled houseboat was seen floating in San Francisco Bay after its owners were evicted from the nearby marina that once housed more than 100 residents.
The vessel is the penultimate houseboat at the Redwood City Marina in California, after the city paid millions of dollars to residents to be evicted and relocated from their houseboats.
Efforts to evict residents living on board began in 2015, and the legal battle between frustrated residents of Docktown Marina and Redwood City has continued for years since.
The U.S. Coast Guard oversaw the move of the shingle boathouse, which was towed by a smaller boat as it glided through the waters of the bay.
Videos and photos posted by social media users capture the massive two-story house floating beneath the Bay Bridge on Monday morning.
Officials clarified that the house was able to float because it is on a barge with the help of a much smaller tugboat.
While it is currently docked near the Richardson Bay Bridge, it is unclear what its final destination will be.
Docktown Marina was managed by the city of Redwood for decades before attorney Ted Hannig and an anonymous group sued the city in 2015.
The lawsuit alleges that Docktown violated public land use laws since the marina is state property that is not zoned for residential use.
Redwood City ultimately paid $1.5 million to Hannig and his group and allocated at least $3 million to clean up pollution at the marina.
The U.S. Coast Guard oversaw the move of the shingle boathouse, which was towed by a smaller boat as it glided across the bay.
While it is currently docked near the Richardson Bay Bridge, it is unclear what its final destination will be. Pictured: Houseboats docked in Sausalito
Slanker and his wife received $190,000 that same year for the relocation and $8,000 for their attorneys’ fees. They left the marina two weeks after the court papers were signed.
After years of eviction efforts, most residents left, and last July only nine boaters remained in their houseboats at the marina.
“We have forgotten that we have been treated like second or third class citizens,” said resident Nina Peschcke-Koedt.
“I just can’t stand it because every day another ship sails, another ship sails,” said Edward Stancil, one of the remaining residents. ABC7 At the time.
‘And it’s very sad to see affordable housing being crushed. Know?’ she added. She lived in the marina since 1986.
“In my particular situation, I have retirement income and I can’t afford to rent a house in Silicon Valley,”
‘All the tenants who are still here don’t want money. “We just want to stay.” he said.
A jury decided the city would pay more than $300,000 to Stancil and three other residents in October.
“The feeling is that they don’t want us here,” another resident, Dan Slanker, said at the time.
‘Since the Docktown plan, which was in 2016, that’s when things really went downhill from there, which I guess should have been a relocation plan rather than a displacement plan.
‘Displacement is second only to the loss of a loved one. And it seems that there are more and more people displaced as time goes by and less and less compensation.
“I think something could be achieved if an effort was made,” he said.
“Anchored” people living rent-free in Richardson Bay face eviction from the waters they call home under an initiative aimed at protecting the marine ecosystem.
Chad Wycliffe, 41, worries he won’t be able to pay rent for land plus a spot at a marina once his boat is towed out of the bay.
Slanker and his wife received $190,000 that same year for the relocation and $8,000 for their attorneys’ fees. They left the marina two weeks after the court papers were signed.
San Francisco has a history of permanently anchored sailor housing communities, but its shipboard lifestyle has faced challenges in recent years.
San Francisco Bay contains approximately 3,000 acres of seagrass, the second largest habitat in all of California, and local officials aim to preserve it by establishing a “Seagrass Protection Zone.”
Biologists maintain that the bay’s marine health depends on seagrass beds providing spawning habitat for the herring that form the base of the food chain.
Around 400 acres of seagrass are found in Richardson Bay, approximately 75 of which have been lost due to chains and anchors dragging across the seabed.
But anchors insist that the real culprits are fertilizers from agriculture and illegal discharges from yachts.
However, local agencies are working to relocate sailors in phases as part of a $3 million program launched in 2021.