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Old 11-24-2018, 12:06 AM   #14
BandB
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City: Fort Lauderdale. Florida, USA
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Maerin View Post
No disrespect intended, but it can't be coincidental that ALL those special areas happen to be adjacent to high end real estate. The appearance that the most wealthy property owners have influenced the passage of legislation that regulates ONLY those specific areas-in a state with thousands of miles of shore line and affects only, as you pointed out, about 1% of the total anchorage available- is what gives that appearance. If it quacks like a duck....
I said 1% but it's far less. It's really a few hundred yards out of thousands of miles. Admittedly those areas do have rather expensive homes. However, the leading proponent in the state legislature for Broward doesn't live on the water and the one in Dade doesn't live near there. There are far more expensive homes with no restrictions.

Here are the restricted areas and comments:

In Broward County the limitation area includes the section of Middle River between Northeast 21st Court and the Intracoastal Waterway. This is not one of the most expensive waterfront areas. Seven Isles and Las Olas Isles and Harbor Island are far more expensive and all have anchorages, marinas, and a mooring field adjacent. Middle River from the park to the ICW is a prime area for jet skis and water skiiing. There are six jet ski rentals either in the restricted area or within 1/2 mile.

The limitation areas in Miami-Dade County include Sunset Lake as well as sections of Biscayne Bay lying between: Rivo Alto Island and Di Lido Island; San Marino Island and San Marco Island; and San Marco Island and
Biscayne Island. Sunset Lake is the largest area as it's about 20 acres to my best estimate sandwiched between Miami Beach mainland and islands. The other areas are each nothing more than canals. The area between Rivo Alto and Di Lido is about 500' wide, has dozens of docks and a major causeway crossing. The area between San Marina and San Marco is about 4 acres of water with docks and with a causeway splitting it. The area between San Marco and Biscayne is two patches on each side of the causeway, each about 160' wide x 200' long with docks. The entire remainder of Biscayne Bay is available for anchoring, just not those small areas between the islands.

If in fact as you assert the regulations were going to prevent anchoring in front of wealthy homes there are far more expensive homes in both counties and in Palm Beach County, which got no exception and they all have plenty of permissible anchoring around them.

Had the opponents of anchoring won you wouldn't be able to anchor within 300' of docks or land. This was a minimal concession for specific areas. If that's what got a good bill passed preventing counties and cities from doing their own thing, then I'm all for it. These exceptions in no way create a shortage of anchorages in the area they are located.

As to this statement No disrespect intended, but it can't be coincidental that ALL those special areas happen to be adjacent to high end real estate. No, it's not coincidental as all waterfront property in Miami/Dade and Broward counties is high end real estate so anywhere these areas would have been excluded, that would have been the case.

The original question was have boaters experienced problems due to restrictions and I've not heard a single boater mention a problem in these areas. The ones anchoring in the Miami sections were not cruisers but were live-aboards, more derelict than not, and most never moved.
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