By Ian Holmes

Nanaimo marinas cry foul over high lease rates

Sep 14, 2016 | 4:15 PM

NANAIMO — A behind-the-scenes battle over waterfront lease rates on Nanaimo’s Newcastle Channel has gone public.

Odai Sirri of the Nanaimo Marina Association, says the Nanaimo Port Authority has implemented heavy foreshore lease rate increases over the last several years, in some cases 125-percent overnight.

Sirri says their association wants a fair rent structure to allow local marinas to compete and grow.

“We’re seeing an absolute stomp of investment and any sort of business activity on the waterfront right now because businesses can’t afford to re-invest when they know that the lease rate is completely out of line with what the market can afford,” says Sirri.

Sirri says Nanaimo has some of the highest foreshore lease rates in Canada, higher than other major cities. He says Nanaimo marina operators have been frustrated for years about sharply rising lease rates, and have been trying to settle this in a more cordial fashion.

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“They (Nanaimo Port Authority) stand by their position and they have been refusing to relent and come up with a fair, equitable, just solution. And that’s all we want, we want a fair rate mechanism that allows us to compete, that allows us to grow our businesses.”

Port Authority president Bernie Dumas says their foreshore lease rates are based on independent appraiser evaluations, which he says is a transport Canada requirement.

Dumas says they are willing to listen to the Marina Association’s concerns, but says they are restricted in how they can help.

“We’re quite open for discussion, we are aware and sensitive to the fact that the increases are in some cases a little heavier than all of us expected, but the value of of the property of Nanaimo’s waterfront is increasing,” says Dumas.

Dumas says there has been ongoing correspondence with the Nanaimo Marina Association regarding concerns of lease-rate levels.

“We’re going to try to work with the group and see, but the regulations make it very difficult to make too much of a change here.”

The Nanaimo Marina Association outlined its concerns in a news release, which Dumas called “dissapointing”, noting that the Port Authority was in the process of setting up a meeting on foreshore lease rates with them.

The association represents 10 marinas in Newcastle channel.