CHINCOTEAGUE, VA - The Chincoteague Town Council heard plans from the Harbor Committee to raise boat slip rental fees during a meeting on Monday.
There are 154 boat slips at the Curtis Merritt Harbor on Chincoteague. Twenty are reserved for transient boaters per the town charter. Eighty-eight are rented by private individuals. Twenty-four are for working watermen, and tour charter operators occupy another 24.
Chincoteague Town Manager Mike Tolbert said the Harbor Committee has been considering boat slip rental increases for months.
"Our costs continue to rise, and we do try to do our best to do projects and maintain the infrastructure at the harbor," Tolbert said.
The Committee devised a plan officials told WBOC would generate nearly $25,000 in two years. Tolbert said this additional revenue would go directly towards harbor improvements, such as security upgrades and hiring fuel assistants.
The rental rate increases vary according to the size of the boat slip and the type of lessee - watermen, private owners and charter or tour boaters.
Private owners would see an increase of 10% each year, for a total increase of about 20% in two years. Rent for charter captains would jump by about 50%, while watermen's rent would not increase at all.
"Nobody's against raising fees ... I think every person who leases here understands that costs go up," Captain Scott Landolt, who rents two slips for his tour boat business, said. "We just found it odd that they were targeting us."
Town officials said the decision not to increase rates for watermen is partially rooted in the original harbor charter.
"In the past, we had a very robust seafood industry, and lately, it has been dwindling for many years now," Tolbert said. "The folks that we still have here making a living, we certainly don't want to discourage that."
Captain John Smith runs his one-boat charter tour as a one-man show. He was surprised by how the plan's increases were distributed.
"If they're going to do an increase, make it a one-for-all, all-for-one kind of a thing," Smith said. "We're no different than anyone else, just trying to make a living."