A large clapboard houseboat was seen floating on San Francisco Bay after its owners were evicted from the nearby marina that once housed more than 100 residents.
The watercraft is the penultimate floating home at the Redwood City Marina in California, after the city paid residents millions of dollars to evict and move them from their houseboats, as SFGate reports.
The two-story wooden house began its journey from the Docktown Marina and anchored Tuesday in Richardson Bay off the coast of Sausalito, according to local reports.
Efforts to evict residents living aboard began in 2015, and the legal battle between frustrated Docktown Marina and Redwood City residents has continued for years.
In October of last year, the city paid more than $1 million to settle lawsuits filed by boaters, who have since left the marina after calling it home for decades.
A large shingle-covered houseboat was seen floating on San Francisco Bay after its owners were evicted from the nearby marina that once housed more than 100 residents.
The watercraft is the penultimate floating home at the Redwood City Marina in California, after the city paid millions of dollars to residents to evict and move them from their houseboats.
Efforts to evict residents living aboard began in 2015, and the legal battle between frustrated Docktown Marina and Redwood City residents has continued for years.
The U.S. Coast Guard monitored the transfer of the shingled boathouse, which was towed by a smaller boat as it slipped through the bay waters.
Videos and photos posted by social media users capture the massive two-story house floating under the Bay Bridge Monday morning.
Officials said the house was able to float because it was on a barge with the help of a much smaller tugboat.
Although it is currently docked near the Richardson Bay Bridge, it is unclear where its final destination will be.
The Docktown Marina was managed by the city of Redwood for decades before the city was sued by attorney Ted Hannig and an anonymous group in 2015.
The lawsuit alleged that Docktown violated public land use laws because the marina is state property that was not zoned for residential use.
Redwood City ultimately paid Hannig and his group $1.5 million and allocated at least $3 million to clean up the marina pollution.
The U.S. Coast Guard monitored the transfer of the shingled boathouse, which was towed by a smaller boat as it slipped through the bay waters.
Although it is currently docked near the Richardson Bay Bridge, it is unclear where its final destination will be. Pictured: Floating homes docked in Sausalito
Slanker and his wife received $190,000 later that year for their move and $8,000 for their attorney’s fees. They left the marina two weeks after the court documents were signed.
After years of eviction efforts, most residents left and only nine boaters remained in their floating homes at the marina last July.
“We forgot, you know, that we were treated sort of like second or third class citizens,” said resident Nina Peschcke-Koedt.
“I just can’t stand it because every day another boat leaves, another boat goes out,” Edward Stancil, one of the remaining residents, told ABC7 at the time.
“And it’s just very sad to see affordable housing being destroyed.” You know?’ he added. He had lived at the marina since 1986.
“In my particular situation, I have retirement income and it’s not enough to rent a house in Silicon Valley,”
“All the tenants that are still here don’t want the money. We just want to stay. he said.
A jury decided the city must pay more than $300,000 to Stancil and three other residents in October.
“The feeling is we’re not wanted here,” another resident, Dan Slanker, said at the time.
“Since the Docktown plan, which was in 2016, that’s when things really went downhill, which I suppose should have been a resettlement plan rather than a displacement plan.
“Displacement comes just after the loss of a loved one. And it seems like we continue to displace more and more people over time and less and less compensation.
“I think something could be found there if effort was required,” he said.
“Anchored” living rent-free in Richardson Bay face being evicted from the waters they call home as part of an initiative to protect the marine ecosystem.
Chad Wycliffe, 41, fears he won’t be able to afford shore rent plus a spot at a marina once his boat is towed from the bay.
Slanker and his wife received $190,000 later that year for their move and $8,000 for their attorney’s fees. They left the marina two weeks after the court documents were signed.
San Francisco has a history of permanently anchored seafarer housing communities, but their cruising lifestyle has faced challenges in recent years.
San Francisco Bay contains about 3,000 acres of eelgrass, the second largest habitat in all of California, and local officials aim to preserve it by establishing an “eelgrass protection zone.”
Biologists say the bay’s marine health depends on seagrass beds that provide spawning habitat for herring, the foundation of the food chain.
About 400 acres of eelgrass are found in Richardson Bay, about 75 of which have been lost to chains and anchors dragged across the seafloor.
But sailors insist the real culprits are fertilizer runoff from agriculture and illegal dumping from yachts.
Nonetheless, local agencies are working to relocate the sailors in stages as part of a $3 million program launching in 2021.
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