Seattle wants to ban new houseboats

In a city of lakes and bays, squabbles about water are inevitable. But as Seattle mulls over a hefty set of new shoreline rules, one of the most iconic waterfront symbols -- houseboats -- is feeling the squeeze.

City planners have drafted rules that would ban new houseboats, limit development, and demote the preferential water-use status currently enjoyed by floating homes.

That of course comes as worrisome news to Seattle's eclectic, tight-knit community of 500 or so houseboaters, many of whom see the rules as the latest browbeating from landlubbers.

"We feel like we've been clamped down on more and more and more," said Amalia Walton of the Seattle Floating Homes Association.

Of the proposals, she said: "People could be priced out of the community... The worst case scenario is that houseboats might disappear."

Part of a massive updating of Seattle's shoreline rules, the houseboat changes are intended to protect the ecology of Lake Union and Portage Bay, where most of the floating homes are. The official thinking is that houseboats and other "overwater residences" are harmful to wildlife habitat, particularly for salmon.

But many houseboaters, who see themselves as stewards of the water, are suspicious of that reasoning. The Floating Homes Association has commissioned its own salmon study, which found that the fish don't come near the shores and houseboats on Lake Union. Houseboaters interpret that as them having little impact on salmon.

"I'm really concerned about the salmon, too," said Walton, a second-generation houseboater who chairs a shoreline-use committee for the floating home group.

"But if you're sacrificing people's homes and communities, there has to be some solid science and reasoning behind it."

'Balancing the needs of everyone'

Bryan Stevens, a spokesman with the Department of Planning and Development (DPD), said Seattle is following a position held by the state Department of Ecology. The state is directing Seattle to update its Shoreline Master Program, a comprehensive set of rules governing use of Seattle's waterways. The last time the program was updated was in 1987.

Among the policy goals: Environmental protection and public access.

"The state is saying no new floating homes," Stevens said. "We have to follow the state, unless we feel like there's a reason we shouldn't."

That makes houseboaters like Caroline Kuknyo, 67, very nervous. Like many owners, Kuknyo lives on a fixed income and bought her house on Lake Union more than a decade ago. She leases her moorage from the state.

She worries what will happen to her if if her lease isn't renewed, or if stricter regulations drive up the cost of routine maintenance, such as adjusting her floats.

Kuknyo paid more than $400,000 for her small 1918 cabin and shells out roughly $780 a year for her portion of a cooperative lease. She sees the fancy new slips being sold at nearby Wards Cove - advertised as "the last new floating home slips ever to be offered in Seattle" -- and knows she could not afford the $1.3 million it costs to live there.

"I feel very vulnerable," Kuknyou said. "People like me, we'd have to sell to people who could afford to live here."

But Margaret Glowacki, a land-use planner and fisheries biologist with DPD, said the city recognizes the need to preserve the community while protecting the environment.

She said new houseboats would be banned, but owners of current homes would be able to tear down and rebuild. She said they would also be able to move a home to new moorage, if they lost their current moorage. So basically the current number of houseboats -- minus the Wards Cove developments -- would be capped.

"It is about balancing the needs of everyone," said Glowacki, who said she's working with houseboaters to make sure no one is priced out.

"Essentially, we've got to balance the protection of the environment with development on the water. There's science that leads us to believe that float structures take away from the habitat for the aquatic species that live in our lakes."

'A running battle for survival'

The city's draft proposals -- expected to be up for public review in September -- would also ban new basements in floating homes. And they would downgrade houseboats from a "preferred" water use to an "allowed" one. That would have no immediate effect on houseboats, but would be used to guide future waterfront development.

That's probably a nuanced change for most people. But for many houseboaters -- for whom the historical houseboat fights with "uplanders" are well known -- the change feels like an erosion of legitimacy.

Houseboats in the city once peaked at more than 2,000, after springing up as cheap logging camps and Depression-era housing. Their numbers shrank in the '50s, when the city razed many for urban renewal, and again in the '80s, when moorage owners inflicted mass evictions. Only about 500 are left today.

"A running battle for survival," is how the Floating Homes Association describes history.

As for the future? The proposals, which will need City Council approval, are expected to go to the Department of Ecology by June of next year.