Board Minutes - You can read minutes of the FHA Board December meeting here.
Fairview Avenue North Bridge Replacement - We are hoping to have a representative from the Fairview Bridge Replacement team at our February meeting. In the meantime you can read all about the project, including timing, projections & contact information, on our website's 'Eastlake News' section here
Short Term Rentals - One hot topic on several docks is how to manage tenancy agreements. As of January 1st, floating homes can no longer be rented out for less than 30 days. You can find out more about the code on the city's website here. If you are on a dock that's looking for help figuring out how to manage rentals, let us know and we'll be happy to let you know what other docks are doing.
Electrical Code - As you may know, the FHA board has been working with Seattle City Light to ensure their proposal to rewrite the electrical code for floating homes meets with the needs of the utility and the homeowners affected. Peter Erickson has spearheaded this process. Here is an update from him:
Greetings FHA,
Justin of Queen Anne Electric and I met with the full team of City Light department heads, engineers and code compliance specialists Friday Dec. 6th.
- Based on verbal communications only it was a good meeting. In prior meetings, at least half of the expense for floating homes to implement City Light’s required life-safety upgrade has been the cost of taking power from a transformer on a pole underground across the street to the head of each dock. City Light has now agreed to absorb this cost by running overhead from the large poles and transformers across the street to a pole at the head of each dock eliminating the need to trench underground.
- Another significant expense in the past has been the need to use galvanized conduit for power runs from each meter at the head of each dock to each houseboat….20 houseboats….20 galvanized pipe conduits. They now agree they will allow the use of schedule 40 PVC which is far less expensive, lighter and easier to install.
- City Light stated that at this point the best way to get these informal agreements on the books and approved was for a random dock to actually make application to upgrade. This entails paying for a design and an actual permit application of a real site. Because all the shore land where floating homes can place meters is on street right-of-way belonging to the Dept. of Transportation, SDOT will have to be involved in the solution.
- Once we have a drawing and an application prepared for a yet-to-be-determined dock, City Light said they’d arrange a meeting for the FHA with Seattle City Light, SDCI and SDOT to hammer out terms and conditions for floating home upgrades. It was their opinion that this is the best way to move forward with the code and jurisdictional issues involved.
- I’ve asked Justin of Queen Anne Electric to generate a proposal to develop this drawing and permit application. As no dock is going to want to volunteer to be the guinea pig to subject themselves to a significant upgrade-cost, the FHA will have to decide if its willing to foot the bill for the design and permit application for a first pass.
- Once a design has been approved, Queen Anne Electric can then give the FHA membership a real cost to do the work. This information will be invaluable for the community at large, for future planning and dues assessments.
- City Light said the permitting process can work through department approvals but stop short of actual construction if funds are not available for the first project.
- With the code revisions and cost in hand our community will know the expense and protocol for any dock in which one member needs to get a larger service.
That's all for now. Please be sure to check any new residents on your dock are subscribed to our mailing list so that they get the FHA updates. You can subscribe here. It's not necessary to be a paid up member to subscribe, be we seriously hope you will consider it! You can see if your dock already purchased your membership here and if they didn't you can find out how to sign up there too!
All the best
Sarah
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