Boat Slips

The county tax on boat slips, which was cut in half last year, could be headed for extinction.A bill introduced last night by the entire County Council would cut the 5 percent slip tax, which is assessed as part of each docking or storage fee charged by a marina, by 1 percent this year.In July 1996, the tax would fall to 2 percent and by July 1997 it would be eliminated.Proposed elimination of the tax is bad news for Annapolis city officials, whose own slip tax is set by law at the same rate as the county's.

A developer's plan for a 36-unit waterfront condominium with boat slips that has pitted neighbor against neighbor for years in Bowleys Quarters has been rejected by a Baltimore County hearing officer. In a 45-page opinion based on days of hearings, John E. Beverungen denied the Galloway Creek condominium proposed by Milton A. Rehbein III, who for decades has owned a marina at the site along Burke Road on the Bowleys Quarters peninsula. While Beverungen agreed with some of the developers' arguments, he rejected the project on grounds that it conflicts with the county master plan and neighborhood community plan, and violates a law that specifies where such projects are allowed in Bowleys Quarters.

The foundering economy has tarnished the marinas of Baltimore's "gold coast."Along the toney sections of Boston Street in Canton, deepwater boat slips adjoining town houses and condominiums are worth tens of thousands of dollars. But with some owners experiencing hard times, creditors are seizing the slips with a vengeance.On Nov. 21, Atlantic Auctions Inc. is scheduled to sell 99 boat slips at Boston Street marinas. The champagne brunches that lured buyers in droves as recently as 1988 are just a memory.

From his blue clapboard and brick home overlooking Herring Bay in the southern Anne Arundel County community of Rose Haven, Mark Curl has views of some of Maryland's iconic sites: the Bloody Point Lighthouse and the Bay Bridge. But a small patch of land much closer to his home — a private beach that is part of the popular Herrington Harbour Marina South, surrounded by 1,000 banana palm trees in the summer — has gotten most of his attention lately. Curl, who has lived at his home for about 30 years, says a beach-replenishment project this spring resulted in the deposit of large amounts of fine silt in Herring Bay, making for a muck-filled mess in the shared waterway.

An Annapolis home builder hopes to breathe new life into a stalled waterfront community that sits across the Kent Narrows Bridge, a 20-minute drive from the state capital.In the mid-1980s, the original developer dubbed Oyster Cove a "pearl on the Shore" that offered the best of rural waterfront living, a 115-slip marina, a clubhouse, tennis courts and a swimming pool.But principals of Washington-based Smithy Braedon Co. built only half the planned 230 condominiums and town houses. Few in the Kent Island watermen's community or from elsewhere, it seemed, could or would pay up to $269,000 for a condo or $350,000 for a town house.

In Maryland Annapolis, Cambridge get funds for waterways, docks ANNAPOLIS - Pointing to the economic benefits derived from recreational boaters on the Chesapeake Bay, the governor announced grants yesterday to the cities of Annapolis and Cambridge to improve waterways and upgrade docks. Annapolis will receive $500,000 to replace and upgrade the boardwalk and boat slips at Annapolis City Dock. The city is spending $500,000 of its own money and expects another $500,000 in federal funds for the project.

An affiliate of Perpetual Savings Bank of Alexandria, Va., was the high bidder yesterday for 99 boat slips and related property at the 500-slip Anchorage marina in Canton with an offer of $2 million.S.A.D. Realty, a Perpetual affiliate that represents the bank's "special assets division," will become the new owner of the boat slips once the sale by Atlantic Auctions is ratified by the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.S.A.D. also will take control of a four-story dockmaster's office and sales center for the marina, the largest in Baltimore and a symbol of its waterfront renaissance during the 1980s.

Annapolis Federal Savings Bank took possession of the financially troubled Spa Creek Yacht Club Monday, after a public foreclosure auction in which the bank offered the sole bid.The bank, which holds the mortgage on the Eastport marina, bid $700,000 for the property, which includes 56 boat slips, a clubhouse, a pool house and a pool.Developer Dennis C. Blaeuer had listed more than $7 million in debts on Spa Creek and another marina, White Rocks Yacht Club in Pasadena, when he declared bankruptcy in two separate filings in September.

Port Deposit is looking grim these days, but the town's fortunes may be turning around with the construction of 170 waterfront town houses.Located on the Cecil County side of the Susquehanna River within view of Interstate 95, the Tome's Landing development is being built on a site that was used by Wiley Manufacturing Co. to build sections for the Fort McHenry and Harbor tunnels before ceasing operations in 1987.The developers plan to create a self-contained community that will sport a marina with 400 boat slips, a commercial and retail shopping complex, waterfront restaurant, pool and tennis courts, fitness center and yacht club.

A developer's plan for a 36-unit waterfront condominium with boat slips that has pitted neighbor against neighbor for years in Bowleys Quarters has been rejected by a Baltimore County hearing officer. In a 45-page opinion based on days of hearings, John E. Beverungen denied the Galloway Creek condominium proposed by Milton A. Rehbein III, who for decades has owned a marina at the site along Burke Road on the Bowleys Quarters peninsula. While Beverungen agreed with some of the developers' arguments, he rejected the project on grounds that it conflicts with the county master plan and neighborhood community plan, and violates a law that specifies where such projects are allowed in Bowleys Quarters.

The $9 million overhaul of City Dock, Annapolis' most prominent piece of maritime heritage, is scheduled to be completed this week on schedule and within budget, city officials say. The first renovation of the dock in more than three decades included replacing about 1,000 feet of rotting bulkhead with steel, installing a new boardwalk, adding boat slips to accommodate larger vessels, building rain gardens to prevent runoff into Spa Creek, and planting new...

With the unofficial end of tourist season next week, the city of Annapolis will close Susan B. Campbell Park and much of City Dock for six months to reinforce its rotting underwater retaining wall. The $8.8 million project, scheduled to take place between the closing of the U.S. Powerboat Show on Oct. 14 and the Maritime Heritage Festival in May, includes replacing about 1,000 feet of bulkhead with steel, landscaping the park and installing a new boardwalk and about 20 new boat slips. City officials expect the dock and surrounding area to be closed from Oct. 17 to April 15 while crews on two barges drive in 97 steel pilings to shore up sinking wooden bulkheads as far as 80 feet below the water's surface.

In Maryland Annapolis, Cambridge get funds for waterways, docks ANNAPOLIS - Pointing to the economic benefits derived from recreational boaters on the Chesapeake Bay, the governor announced grants yesterday to the cities of Annapolis and Cambridge to improve waterways and upgrade docks. Annapolis will receive $500,000 to replace and upgrade the boardwalk and boat slips at Annapolis City Dock. The city is spending $500,000 of its own money and expects another $500,000 in federal funds for the project.

Three acres of waterfront land across from Henderson's Wharf in Fells Point soon will become home to hundreds of new apartment and townhouse dwellers in a development planned for completion in fall 2005. The project, being developed by the Hanover Company of Houston, is to include 10 waterfront townhouses, 252 apartments and 52 boat slips on land that until recently was owned by the Belts Corp., a warehousing and distribution company. "We just love the site," said John Garibaldi, development partner for the Hanover Company.

When you ask Fred Mitchell about Perryman, the community in which he has spent the last 66 years, what you get is a history of a small area only slowly affected by the touches of time."

After weeks of tempest over a plan to move the last two crabbing vessels at City Dock, Annapolis Mayor Dean L. Johnson has orchestrated a game of musical boats to allow them to remain.City officials began talking in March about moving the boats of Charlie Meiklejohn, who has tied up at City Dock for 52 years, and his stepson, Alexander Parkinson, to make room for a 54-foot charter boat that would pay a higher slip fee, $500 a month vs. the watermen's $50.Meiklejohn, 68, was going to have to tie up 90 feet from his current spot, and Parkinson was to be relegated to Eastport.

From his blue clapboard and brick home overlooking Herring Bay in the southern Anne Arundel County community of Rose Haven, Mark Curl has views of some of Maryland's iconic sites: the Bloody Point Lighthouse and the Bay Bridge. But a small patch of land much closer to his home — a private beach that is part of the popular Herrington Harbour Marina South, surrounded by 1,000 banana palm trees in the summer — has gotten most of his attention lately. Curl, who has lived at his home for about 30 years, says a beach-replenishment project this spring resulted in the deposit of large amounts of fine silt in Herring Bay, making for a muck-filled mess in the shared waterway.

Most folks living near the Canton waterfront love the East Baltimore neighborhood's nautical character -- the salty breezes, the sunlight twinkling on the Patapsco River, the nimble sailboats, the plodding tugs on shifting tidal waters.But they hate the fact that with the influx of boat owners come cars -- scores of them, hundreds even, on warm summer weekends, overflowing marina parking lots and hogging parking spaces along nearby residential streets.It has been enough to make many a Canton resident very, very angry.

THE GROWTH OF BOATING in Middle River is a welcome sign of economic development but also a sign of overcrowded waterways and ecological damage.More powerful boats generate more noise and dangers. Growing traffic has churned up bottom grasses and eroded the shoreline.The challenge is to balance the demand for boating recreation, and its significant economic potential, with environmental protection of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.New rules proposed by the county would expedite the process for controlled expansion of existing commercial marinas, with strict environmental requirements.

The County Council unanimously approved a bill last night that will eliminate within two years a tax imposed on marina boat slip rentals.The legislation, which was sponsored by the seven-member council, will lower the 5 percent slip tax by 1 percent in July. The next year, the tax will fall to 2 percent and it will be repealed altogether by July 1997.At a hearing attended by about 150 to 200 marina owners and employees, Councilman Thomas W. Redmond Sr., the Pasadena Democrat who drafted the bill, said repealing the tax is an economic development initiative.