Harbor commission recommends $90/$240 annual crab-pot storage fee to city council

The Depoe Bay Harbor Commission voted to recommend that the City Council adopt an annual crab-pot storage fee based on the storage footprint on the dock: $90 per year for class A and B vessels and $240 per year for class C vessels (computed at $10 per square foot).

The proposal will be presented to city council at its April 1 meeting. Commissioners said the recommendation is intended as a practical, interim approach that the council can review and revise after a one-year trial and further data from harbor operations and engineering.

Commissioners and harbor users spent the bulk of the meeting discussing how to set a fee that is “fair and equitable” for boats that store crab pots on the new docks. Participants described a range of proposals discussed in prior meetings and with city staff — from about $100 up to $1,000 a year in some earlier drafts — and focused on two possible calculation methods: (1) apportion fees by vessel footprint (the amount mortgage holders already pay) and (2) apportion fees by the square footage of the crab-pot storage area on the dock. The commission settled on the latter for the recommendation it will forward.

A commission member summarized the math used by supporters of the dock-footprint approach: a 50-foot vessel (about 800 square feet of berth) pays roughly $3,000 a year in mortgage fees, which is about $4 per square foot; taking a typical crab-pot platform footprint (4 by 8 feet, 32 square feet) would equate to roughly $126, though commissioners said fairness arguments pushed some members toward a higher flat figure. After discussion, commissioners and stakeholders coalesced on a $10-per-square-foot rate for storage space on the dock, producing the $90 and $240 annual amounts for the defined classes.

Harbor users and charter-boat operators urged moderate fees and warned against treating storage as a major revenue source for the city. Several operators said crab-pot stacks are not especially heavy and raised operational concerns about access, where stacks would be stored during busy periods and how boats with different carrying capacities would be accommodated. Commissioners and staff described logistical constraints that limit options for relocating stored pots, including mitigation and permitting limits on adding over-water structures (for example, adding a barge or float would trigger additional mitigation because Dock 2 already increased overwater coverage) and practical issues with narrow areas and truck access.

Commission members also reviewed capacity and operational rules: the ordinance limits storage to times when boats are not actively crabbing at sea, and the commission said each dock section will allow up to 20 pots, producing a maximum dock-wide capacity of 240 crab pots under the current layout. Commissioners said the ordinance provides additional detail (height/spec limits and per-vessel limits), and the city has posted the recently adopted ordinance on its website.

The commission directed its recommendation to city council as a one-year pilot so the council and harbor staff can collect operational data, evaluate enforcement and storage impacts, and return with adjustments if needed.

Votes at a glance: The commission moved, seconded and approved forwarding the storage-fee recommendation to city council (motion text: “Propose to City Council that crab-pot storage user fees be charged at $10 per square foot of storage area on the dock, resulting in $90/year for class A/B and $240/year for class C”). The commission also held administrative votes earlier in the meeting electing Liz Barth as chair and Jeff O’Brien as vice chair; those elections were approved by voice vote.

The commission said it will include implementation details and engineering input (the memorandum that shows how many pots each dock section can support) when it presents the recommendation to the council. Commissioners emphasized the recommendation is a starting point and encouraged a review after the pilot period to address equity, enforcement and any unintended operational impacts.