by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
Large vessels docking downtown may soon be abiding by new rules and regulations.
Filed Tuesday morning at the request of the Jacksonville Waterways Commission, the pending legislation would update current standards along the North and Southbank riverwalks that have remained largely unchanged for 12 years.
“The way we handle larger vessels downtown right now is based off of a bill drafted in 1992 when we were trying to establish a cruise ship market downtown,” said Waterways chair Lynette Self. “Obviously, that never became a reality, but we still had, and continue to have, other ships docking here. We never really addressed that until now.”
Self described the legislation as two-fold.
“On one hand, we haven’t updated our rate structure in a very long time. We definitely needed to do that,” she said.
Self assembled a Docking Fee Subcommittee which researched rates in nine cities, including Miami, San Diego and Charleston, S.C.
The group found Jacksonville rate structures were consistent with those cities, except when dealing with domestic ships carrying less than 150 passengers.
The daily new rate structure would establish a range between $1 and $1.15 per foot, depending on which utilities the ships use.
The vessels must also be insured for at least $1 million and must cover everything from personal injury to general liability.
The second leg of the bill, said Self, more clearly outlines who is exempt from paying dock fees.
“The other thing we looked at,” she said, “was the large amount of non-profit and military ships we have been seeing downtown. You typically don’t want to charge them because you try to encourage that kind of activity.
“The only issue we’ve had to work around was that we had to have the City Council approve each ship before we exempt them from paying the docking fees. It’s a timely process from contacting an attorney, to drawing up a bill, to moving it through the Council process.
“It can also be expensive for the City to go through that every time, especially when we’ve never said no. The new legislation makes provisions for that and really streamlines the whole process.”
Self added exempt ships will still be required to reserve space before arriving and docking.
“I think we’ve made all of the necessary provisions for this to work much better for us,” she said. “It’s a good bill and I’m looking forward to seeing it through.”