Local · Trusted · Free
The Morning Impact — your neighborhood's most important stories, delivered every morning.
Nearly five months after League City passed new marina permits and inspections, people who live on their boats, or live-aboards, say it has caused a “mass exodus.”
How we got here
League City City Council voted 7-1 to approve an ordinance creating new regulations for live-aboard vessels, abandoned and derelict vessels, and sanitation within city waterways at its Dec. 16 meeting.
In their own words
Dustin Dietrich and his wife lived on their boats in the Bay for over seven years, but after the ordinance passed, they moved to Galveston, as Dietrich said many of their friends have done.
Ashley Shutter said she’d lived on sailboats her entire life in the Bay Area where her father began his business repairing sailboats.
Shutter, who is currently in Mexico, said she’d attended a few town hall meetings but felt her community’s concerns fell on “deaf ears.”
“Home is somewhere I can no longer live,” Shutter said.
Currently, if the boat is inoperable or partially dismantled for 30 days, the city can abate, or remove, it, Dietrich said.
“Right now, I am 32 days into a repair on my boat,” Dietrich said. “In their ordinance ... the city can abate it.”
The impact
League City City Council voted 7-1 at its May 12 meeting to amend the ordinance it approved last year to increase how many days people can live on their boat before needing a permit and make it easier to reapply for a permit, as well as increase the penalties for dumping.
According to previous reporting by Community Impact, the amendments approved included the following:
