Minutes of the SF Marina Harbor Annual Meeting
Thursday Feb 13, 2025 – 7 to 9 PM – Ft. Mason Center – Room C205
27 members in attendance plus:
District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill (sherrilstaff@sfgov.org) his Chief of Staff Lauren Chung (lauren.l.chung@sfgov.org)
SF Rec and Park Project Manager Monica Scott (monica.scott@sfgov.org)
Harbormaster Scott Grindy (scott.grindy@sfgov.org)
President Bruce Stone (bruce@brucestone.com) opened the meeting with a welcome and reviewed our role:
The purpose of our Association is the betterment of SF Marina Harbor and especially attaining a high-quality experience for boat owners, crew and guests. Berths need to be safe, accessible by land and navigable water, with appropriate sizes to serve our community. Tonight, we invite our members to hear from harbor management and East Harbor project planners, and provide them with feedback from you, the actual users of the harbor.
The minutes from last year’s meeting were approved.
The following were elected by unanimous consent:
President & Treasurer – Bruce Stone
Vice President – Risley Sams
Secretary & Webmaster – Kurt Hemmingsen
Directors – Theresa Brandner, John Rivlin, Mark Hensley, Jeff Spoering, Andrew Zimmerman (plus the three officers above)
Harbormaster Scott Grindy discussed upcoming dredging in August/September, possibly reverting to the old-fashioned key system as the electronics are failing, new staffing, the wait list, and removing derelict boats. He mentioned attaining 88% occupancy, repairing sinkholes caused by broken pipes, and extensive damage to the seawall between the St. Francis and Golden Gate Yacht Clubs from winter storms. He said the seawall does not have proper riprap to protect it. He also said they are sleeving weak pilings in East Harbor as temporary patches until the entire harbor can be ripped out.
Monica Scott outlined revised designs for the East Harbor project. Her exhibits may be found at 2024_12_05_SF Marina_CM3_web_202412161444574618.pdf
The new plan shows reorienting the slips to facing East-West instead of North-South, a sheet pile breakwater instead of a floating wave attenuator, and the fuel dock in West Harbor at the existing pump-out dock. To widen the turn-basin and mitigate congestion in the channel, the pump-out/gas dock would be moved further to the south. The Scott St mole would be shortened and a new ramp installed from the mole to the pump out/gas dock.
There was substantial opposition to this West Harbor location for the fuel dock due to potential interaction with boats waiting to fuel up, possibly blocking the fairway needed by boats transiting into Inner West. Most felt this would compromise the safety of junior sailors coming to and from their practice area and create conflicts with all boats without motors (junior dinghies, Folkboats, Knarrs) who need room to tack back and forth to reach their berths.
We expressed concern about a fuel truck coming every 2-3 days to refill the fuel tanks, adding commercial traffic to an awkward space near the current trash depot in West Harbor. Right now, sight lines are difficult for cars passing in either direction, given the food trucks block the view. Finally, the venting from such tanks would be directly upwind of children enjoying Marina Green, an unsafe practice.
The consensus among attendees was to install the fuel dock on the newly created guest dock in East Harbor. This provides much faster access for police/fire boats and commercial boats. We requested RPD provide renewed consideration of this location.
We suggested revising the business model to include some regular paying berths or guest berths along the new dock that will be just inside the north-south sheet pile breakwater.
We also suggest some paying berths along the new north-south guest dock.
Supervisor Sherrill mentioned he would speak with the Port of San Francisco to see if the Hyde Street fueling station could be reopened and handle both gas and diesel. It is currently closed due to a dispute between the Port and the fuel concessionaire regarding responsibility for a fuel leak.
East Harbor Breakwater:
RPD has accepted our proposal for a fixed breakwater to be located along the west side of the entrance channel at East Harbor, instead of the “wave attenuator” that was proposed for the east side of that channel, close to Ft Mason piers. This will provide vastly superior protection for the boats in the new slips.
New “I” dock slips and West Harbor Breakwater:
RPD proposes to build slips in the “I” dock area to the East of Golden Gate YC. These are the same slips that were destroyed by silting of West Harbor. To protect these slips from wave action and from silting, Monica Scott described a new 225-foot sheet pile breakwater running from the Wave Organ jetty to the East. Aside from knocking down waves, RPD claims this will send silt to the East, enabling them to avoid dredging West Harbor every year – in fact, they claim a 10–15-year interval. There was general skepticism that this interval is achievable. The Morphological Study (soils deposition forecast) is available on our Association website at www.sfmarinaharbor.org.
West Harbor Dredging and Occupancy:
Members commented that the entire West Harbor is in dire need of thorough dredging, a main reason for the inability of the Harbormaster to find tenants for the numerous shallow slips. The Harbormaster claimed to have filled 11 more berths recently and that he will fill more by allowing smaller boats to occupy larger berths, while paying a rate based on the size of their boat rather than the size of the slip.
Rent Increase and Future Economics:
RPD proposed and the Supervisors accepted sharply higher rates. Mr. Stone commented that the sharp rate increase should have been on the base rate, not on the base rate plus the 21% dredging surcharge. He also said:
“..while RPD denied this had anything to do with the East Harbor project, they needed to do this because the proposed East Harbor will have half of the berths initially projected when the City signed its agreement with PGE. This failure of project planning is now being charged to all berth holders.”
The Board of Supervisors’ Budget Analyst accepted RPD’s argument that the existence of the wait list supported the rate increases, claiming there will be no additional vacancy, despite our pointing out to him that most people on the wait list defer taking a slip because the available inventory is either too narrow or too shallow…and many on the list do not actually own a boat and are just keeping options open in case they acquire a boat.” He contended there is functionally no wait list, and it is a poor predictor of demand.
Furthermore, he stated “East Harbor boat owners will vacate their slips during construction, with some going into West Harbor and others relocating, though we expect many to sell their boats. Those who do move across the Bay will enjoy warmer weather and lower rates and might not return once East Harbor reopens. Many feel that East Harbor will be starting at near-zero occupancy, and the Harbormaster will struggle to fill the available slips, especially at the newly inflated berth rates. He concluded that the renovated harbor will be a financial disaster and is concerned that RPD will come back again with unconscionable rate increases.
To mitigate this, in a letter sent in January 2024 to then President of the Board of Supervisors Aaron Peskin, he asked the Supervisors “to use funds from the PGE contract to pay off the existing loan from the State of California, as the debt service weighs heavily on Harbor cash flow. The logic is that there should be surplus funds since they are neither completely rebuilding East Harbor as originally planned, nor building the offsetting extra slips in Outer West that were opposed by the neighborhood. However, the City did not allow enough contingency for inflationary cost increases and now claim there will be no reserve…”
The City responded that they cannot divert funds from East Harbor toward paying off the legacy loans.
Stay up to date at www.sfmarinaharbor.org under “Latest News” which includes relevant exhibits and studies, including the justification for the 225-foot breakwater extension, and the proposed designs for East Harbor and the fuel dock.
The meeting concluded at 915 PM.