Sarasota Florida evicting anchored boats

[danagle]

Sarasota Florida has decided to "clean up" the water front by evicting boats anchored in the bay. Their plan is to install a mooring field (cost to taxpayers is somewhat over $500,000) and charge $250 a month.

This has always been a free and well protected anchorage along the ICW.

While this doesn't personally affect me as I'm paying for a slip at the nearby marina, it does affect a few people I know.

I've seen these conversations come up in the past here and there around the net, but does anyone have links to law governing the waters in the US? I keep hearing how its not legal for local communities to do things like this (evict boats, charge for anchoring/mooring, etc) but I've never seen any actual evidence. It would be nice to know what actions these people can take to defend their way of life.

Here is a link to the local news article discussing this:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090622/article/906221049

Ultimately, I know this is a losing battle. Even if the city were forced to stop the evictions there is little that could be done to prevent them from harassing this people endlessly (ie, having the police go out the boats a couple times a day to "inspect" them, having the police power boats make huge wakes at night through the field, etc) so that they move on their own. But still, it seems this battle should be fought.

[Osiris]

The short story is the Fed's only own the water in the ICW. The States own the mud underneath the water so the State can regulate where and how you anchor unless you use a sea anchor (not very practical). Florida has a comprehensive set of laws and regulations about what communities can and cannot do with the "mud" in their district. Basically, if the local community provides a mooring field they can restrict anchoring. The idea being you cannot ban anchoring unless they provide an alternative. The state laws and reg's do not address costs and fees and other factors for the moorings, so there is a lot of leeway for the communities. The underlying idea is to eliminate the "derelict" boats used by the homeless which constitutionally they cannot specifically "target" so they have to target everybody to accomplish their objectives. There are extensive discussions on other cruising/sailing websites about the fine details.

[southwindphoto]

What happened is city’s lie Miami started passing laws making it illegal to anchor for longer than 7 nights.

Knowing the implications to sailors, the FWC passed a new law allowing cities to install a mooring area, and charge a fee.

However, just down the ICW aways,or another section of the bay and you can still anchor for free, as long as you like.