BELFAST - After sending the advisory Harbor Committee back to the drawing board earlier this month, the City Council on Tuesday approved a new fee schedule for slips at Thompson’s Wharf pier. The facility is slated to be rebuilt in the coming months in a new configuration that will roughly double the current capacity.

A catch-all rate of $75 per foot recommended by the committee for recreational and non-charter commercial boats replaces a variable scale that Harbor Master Katherine Pickering said averages roughly $60 per foot.

Some users, however will see a significantly greater increase than the 25 percent average.

Steve Garrand has kept a 25-foot sailboat at Thompson’s Wharf for five years. This season, he said, the plan is to replace it with an 18-foot skiff that he’ll use to access a float that he uses to service small boats. Though his new boat will be 30-percent shorter, his total cost for the season will go up by $100, he said, or roughly 50 percent. 

Garand, who addressed the Council on Tuesday, said he felt the pier should be regarded more in the spirit of other municipal amenities like City Park, which are largely paid for by the city based on a philosophy of access to public land and water. The rate increase, he said, was inconsistent with the approach taken in other coastal towns and cities, including Camden.

“I thought this would have been a little more fair,” he said.

An earlier Harbor Committee recommendation of $70 per foot was rejected by the City Council based on comparisons with commercial facilities at Front Street Shipyard and Consumers Fuel. The Council acknowledged that private docks offer more amenities in exchange for higher rates, but several councilors still found the disparity to be too wide given the increase in harbor traffic over the past several years.

Jim Black of the Harbor Committee said members looked at an average of rates among local commercial docks, noted the differences in amenities and tried to put a number to those. The final recommendation, he said, was to charge $75 per foot and put some of that money away for future dock repairs and to top up the ENK Fund trust, which is being tapped for the new pier.

“If we amortize this wharf over 10 years and set up these contingency funds, I think we’ll be in good shape,” he said.

Garand said he was glad the money from the fee hike would be going back toward the pier, adding that he hopes it does indeed get put in a dedicated account and not into the city’s general fund.

Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com