Waterfront condo owners tell legislators to ditch proposed dock fees

Waterfront condominium owners throughout the state are flooding the Legislature with e-mails protesting a proposed doubling of rental fees for state-owned submerged land under their docks.

More than 24,000 e-mails, many sent through the Florida Homeowners for Fair Treatment Web site, ask the Senate to eliminate the new condominium dock fees proposed in Senate Bill 1012.

The fees originally were proposed to quadruple lease fees for condominium docks in protected waterways such as Boca Ciega Bay.

The bill was amended last week to merely double the fees and is now part of the Legislature's budget conference negotiations, though there was no companion bill in the House.

Condominium owners are pushing for the lease fee for condominium docks to be dumped entirely from the bill, which also increases fees for commercial docks and marinas.

If the present bill becomes law, condominiums will have to pay 30 cents per square foot of submerged land covered by docks instead of the current 14-cent rate.

Condominium owners say nonprofit condominium docks are being treated as a "honey pot of revenue" for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection budget, according to e-mails sent to state legislators.

Unlike commercial marinas and condominiums, most single-family homeowners with docks extending over state-owned submerged lands are not required to pay an annual lease fee.

That practice would continue under the Senate bill.

"We want to be treated just like single-family homeowners. The state is like a big giant abusing the little people," says Terri Pentek, a Tierra Verde condominium owner who helped organize the protest.

Pentek said the proposed law would raise the annual submerged land lease for her complex alone from about $16,000 to more than $30,000.

Statewide, more than 500 waterfront condominiums that use more than 9 million square feet of submerged land pay the state about $1.2 million in lease fees.

The Florida Homeowners for Fair Treatment Web site's suggested e-mail text warns that unless the bill is changed, "some condominium owners would see their lease fees increase by thousands of dollars annually, and others could be forced to remove their docks all together."

A similar protest organized by Pentek and other local condominium owners last year forced the state DEP to abandon similar proposed increases in submerged land lease fees.

Sen. Lee Constantine, the bill's sponsor, has previously explained the measure this way: "We are just trying to get the costs of public and private marina slips more organized. The state is undercollecting up to $2 million a year for these leases."

Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs, is the chairman of the Senate's environmental preservation and conservation committee.

Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, cast the sole vote against the fee increase when it passed the Senate last week.

"In my opinion, condominiums are being treated unfairly. They are looked at as commercial just because they have ability to have docks," Fasano said.

At a minimum, Fasano said he wants the Legislature to leave submerged land lease fees unchanged for condominium docks.