A large, shingled houseboat was seen floating across San Francisco Bay after its owners were evicted from the nearby marina that once housed more than 100 residents.
The watercraft is the second-to-last floating home at the Redwood City marina in California, after the city paid out millions of dollars to residents to evict and relocate from their boat homes, as reported by SFGate.
The two-story wooden home started its voyage from the Docktown Marina and has anchored in Richardson Bay offshore from Sausalito on Tuesday, according to local reports.
Efforts to evict residents living aboard started in 2015, and the legal battle between frustrated residents of Docktown Marina and Redwood City had since 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, shingled houseboat was seen floating across San Francisco Bay after its owners were evicted from the nearby marina that once housed more than 100 residents
The watercraft is the second-to-last floating home at the Redwood City marina in California , after the city paid out millions of dollars to residents to evict and relocate from their boat homes
Efforts to evict residents living aboard started in 2015, and the legal battle between frustrated residents of Docktown Marina and Redwood City had since continued for years
The U.S. Coast Guard monitored the transfer of the shingled boathouse, which was towed by a smaller boat as it glided through the waters across 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’s on a barge with assistance from a much smaller tow boat.
While it’s currently docked near the Richardson Bay Bridge, it’s 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 Docktown violated public land use laws as the marina is state property which was not zoned for residential use.
Redwood city eventually paid $1.5million to Hannig and his group and allocated at least $3million to clean pollution at the marina.
The U.S. Coast Guard monitored the transfer of the shingled boathouse, which was towed by a smaller boat as it glided through the waters across the bay
While it’s currently docked near the Richardson Bay Bridge, it’s unclear where its final destination will be. Pictured: floating homes docked in Sausalito
Slanker and his wife were paid $190,000 later that year for relocation and $8,000 for their attorney’s fees. They left the marina in two weeks after the court papers were signed
After years of eviction efforts, most residents left, and there were only nine boaters remaining at their floating homes at the marina by last July.
‘We’ve got forgotten about, you know, we have been treated sort of second class- third class citizens,’ resident Nina Peschcke-Koedt said.
‘I just can’t stand it because every day another boat goes out, 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 crushed. You know?’ he added. He had lived at the marina since 1986.
‘In my particular situation, I’m on a retirement income and it’s not quite enough to rent a house in Silicon Valley,
‘Every tenant that’s still here doesn’t want any money. We just want to stay.’ he said.
A jury decided the city to pay more than $300,000 to Stancil and other three residents in October.
‘The feeling is that we’re not wanted here,’ another resident Dan Slanker said at the time.
‘Since the Docktown plan, which was 2016, that has been when things have really gone downhill from there, which I suppose should’ve been a relocation plan instead of a displacement plan.
‘Displacement is second only to the loss of a loved one. And it seems like we just keep getting more and more people displaced as time goes on and even less and less compensation.
‘I think that something could be worked out there if there was effort involved,’ he said.
‘Anchor-outs’ living rent-free on Richardson Bay face eviction from the waters they call home under an initiative aiming to protect the marine ecosystem
Chad Wycliffe, 41, worries that he will not be able to afford rent on land in addition to a spot in a marina once his boat is towed from the bay
Slanker and his wife were paid $190,000 later that year for relocation and $8,000 for their attorney’s fees. They left the marina in two weeks after the court papers were signed.
San Francisco has a history of housing communities of permanently anchored mariners, but their liveaboard lifestyle has faced challenges in recent years.
The San Francisco Bay contains roughly 3,000 acres of eelgrass, the second-largest habitat in all of California, and local officials are aiming to preserve it through the establishment of an ‘Eelgrass Protection Zone.’
Biologists argue that the bay’s marine health depends on the seagrass to provide a spawning habitat for the herring that form the bedrock of the food chain.
Around 400 acres of eelgrass are found in Richardson Bay, approximately 75 of which have been lost to chains and anchors dragging across the seafloor.
But anchor-outs insist the real culprits are fertilizer runoff from agriculture and illegal dumping from yachts.
Nevertheless, local agencies are working to relocate the mariners in phases as part of a $3 million program launched in 2021.