Controversy surges as Metro Parks raises boat-locker rent at this popular Tacoma marina

Metro Parks Tacoma recently announced that it will raise the rates for boat storage at Point Defiance Marina for the first time in 14 years. Renters will see an increase of just under 125% on their bills, split among two installments: One on Oct. 1 and another April 1, 2025.

Metro Parks has argued that, although unfortunate, the change affecting some 290 tenants is necessary and overdue. But for some renters, like Mark Carr, the new prices might prove prohibitive.

Carr said he’s considered an “old timer” at the Point Defiance boathouse, where he keeps his 16-foot aluminum fishing boat. The 60-year-old explained that he’s had a vessel there since he was 11.

As someone with congestive heart failure, Carr said he’s on Social Security disability. He and many other tenants weren’t happy to learn of the upcoming spike in boat-locker rent.

Carr said he will soon go from being charged $112 to $251 per month, something that he says he can’t afford on a fixed income.

“So, there goes my only form of recreation,” he said, “not to mention all the salmon that I catch that’s good for me to eat throughout the year, and crab and shrimp — and, you know, not to mention — fun.”

Four tenants reached out to and spoke with The News Tribune about the soon-to-be-higher rents. They recognized the need for a price hike to keep up with inflation.

But more than doubling the rates has struck many boaters with sticker shock.

Why are the rent increases necessary?

Metro Parks recognizes that the rent changes could squeeze out certain tenants, including older retirees, said Joe Brady, deputy director of regional parks and attractions.

“That breaks the heart. That’s not the intention of what we want to have happen, but it is a reality,” Brady added. “If you cannot afford it at that cost, we can’t ask the general taxpayer to cover that cost for you.”

Brady noted that Metro Parks runs the marina as an enterprise fund. Such funds are “typically used for operations that function as a business and recover at least 100% of its costs,” as noted in Metro Parks’ 2023-24 biennium operating and capital budget.

Enterprise funds provide services that are “highly individualized” for folks seeking out a particular recreational activity or experience, Brady said. Another example includes the Meadow Park Golf Course.

Brady said the boat-storage operation hasn’t covered its own cost for quite some time: “And we’ve been eating away and slowly degrading our working capital fund to balance the books at the end of each year. ...

“We’ve had several kind of king tide-related flooding events that have happened over the past several years,” he continued. “We had a pretty major malfunction and breakage of our fire-suppression system in the new boathouse. So, all of those things had to come out of our working capital to help fix.”

Regardless, Carr said, the rent increases will mean that he’ll remove his boat. He might even have to sell it. That’s not something he wants, given his connection to the marina and surrounding waters. He traces his lineage back to Job Carr, Tacoma’s founder.

About 20 years ago, Mark Carr said he took his father out on a fruitful fishing excursion. He recalled what his dad told him:

“‘Son,’ he says, ‘When I die, I want you to put my ashes right here.’”

That wish was later fulfilled.

Heated board meeting

Roughly a dozen speakers, including Carr, aired their grievances about the boathouse changes during the community-comment portion of the Park Board’s Sept. 9 meeting.

Petitioners told the board that an increase makes sense, even one that’s 10%. But this, they argued, is far too much all at once.

One speaker brought up a parks-and-zoo bond that Tacoma voters previously passed. Shouldn’t that help fund this issue?

Brady told The News Tribune that the 2014 bond was meant for capital-related items, such as building new playgrounds, community centers and parks. It can’t be used for operational purposes, he said. Voters didn’t approve sending tax dollars to private-boathouse storage.

He said although Metro Parks accepts the “management error” in not having raised locker rates in more than a decade, it intends to do so moving forward to prevent a similar jolt.

Metro Parks understands that this is a hard pill to swallow, Brady said.

“But at the same time, as the manager at Metro Parks and making sure that we’re fiscally solvent for the entire community, we can’t get into the argument or the idea that public taxpayers — dollars that they earned and pay property tax for — should subsidize the activity for a private boat owner in a public boat house,” Brady said. “That’s not fair.”

Why the old boathouse closed

Bill Combs, 60, told The News Tribune that he’s had a locker at Point Defiance since he was a teenager. He worked at the Point Defiance boathouse when he was in high school through early college, and his father was “one of the main maintenance guys” there for 25 to 30 years.

“We have a lot of history down there in our family,” Combs said.

His gripes with the boathouse predate the recent rent-increase announcement.

In January, Combs said, tenants learned that they could no longer use the old boathouse building because it had been deemed structurally unsafe. Moving over to the new boathouse led to that facility becoming full, he added — then came the raised rates.

Combs said the closure of the old structure has also made its elevator inaccessible. That’s led to lines in the new boathouse as tenants wait to get into the water at first light.

“I mean, they want us to pay more for giving us less,” Combs said.

He added that of the two remaining elevators, one is regularly down.

Brady noted that the concrete section of the old boathouse was shuttered at the start of the year based on the recommendations from the state’s Department of Labor and Industries, plus Metro Parks’ structural-engineering assessment. The building, which dates back to the 1920s, showed signs of concrete spalling, he said.

Metro Parks then made room at the new boathouse to accommodate 20 or so tenants, he said.

As for the elevators, Brady noted that they are unique, technical pieces of equipment. One or the other is operating 96% of the time. He described their inspection regime as “rigorous” to ensure they’re working smoothly and safely.

When they’re in need of service, a third-party company is called in to help get them up and running again, he said.

Keeping up with inflation

Art Tachell has been a boat-locker tenant at Point Defiance for about 40 years. He told The News Tribune that increasing the cost because of inflation makes sense, “but this is far and above that.”

Simply packing up and moving elsewhere isn’t an option for some. Tachell said certain folks don’t have boat trailers, and other locations are costlier with long waiting lists. (Carr, for instance, said he’s heard that Narrows Marina has a waiting list and that rents start at about $190 per month.)

Brady said Gig Harbor has closed its waiting list because of how backed up it is — as long as eight to 10 years. About 80 people are on Metro Parks’ waiting list, he added. Current customers are expected to drop out because of the raised rents.

Tachell, who serves as an advisor with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, suggested an alternative: He’d like to see up to a 20% rate increase this year. From there prices could be incrementally adjusted and eventually catch up to market value.

Brady explained that Metro Parks’ prior leadership tried to raise rents in 2018 and ‘19. The “same group of tenants really rose up, and Metro Parks didn’t have the gumption at that point in time to do this work,” he said.

“We are at the position now at the marina, where that … working capital fund is run out,” Brady continued. “The only other option for us is to stop offering this service altogether.”

How did Metro Parks come up with the prices?

Metro Parks analyzed prices for at least 32 other similar facilities, including on-water marinas and off-water uncovered facilities, when determining the new rates, a spokesperson said via email.

Based on that examination, Brady said, Metro Parks found that the Point Defiance costs are 125% below market today.

Pursuing a two-step increase, then keeping up with inflation afterward, is the best solution for the long term, Brady argued. Stretching it out longer would mean that Metro Parks would just find itself in the same scenario in the future.

Brady has heard some tenants liken the changes to an eviction notice, a statement that hits him hard.

“What I really want this community — not only the boathouse community, but also the general community — to know and understand is that if we don’t get the rates back to market rate, and if we don’t operate this particular enterprise in a cost-recovery type of manner, it’s an eviction notice for the entire operation. Because we won’t have a choice,” he said. “And that’s a really, really tough position to put ourselves in.”