Flagler County Joins St. Johns in Banning ‘Floating Structures’ Used as Unregulated Party Stores on Waterways

A month after St. Johns County did so, the Flagler County Commission last week banned all floating structures used on county rivers, lakes or inlets “like a neighborhood convenience store on the water,” as a county memo describes them, and that the county considers unregulated nuisances that at times damage the surrounding ecology.

The ban applies countywide. Cities have the authority to opt out. House boats in a marina are exempt as long as they are safely tied up and not damaging estuaries. Flagler County has not had an issue with such floating structures. The ordinance is intended as a pre-emptive measure.




One such barge has been anchoring at the Matanzas Inlet, especially on weekends, when the area is filled with boats, swimmers and revelers. County Attorney Al Hadeed described it as an “emporium” that sells food and alcohol and rents beach chairs and rafts. “These are unregulated sales,” Hadeed said. ” They’re not complying with any public health standards. They don’t have any of the protections to the waterway and to the public, or being licensed as a vessel: waste disposal, waste control, trash control, any kind of emergency thing.”

Commissioner Donald O’Brien saw the structure at the inlet. “Clearly it’s a concession stand, and it’s huge,” he said. When water is low, it lists. “It clearly does not belong there.”

The structures are towed to their anchoring points, and as such are not registered. “Floating Structures” are defined separately from “vessels” or “boats” under state law. A 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case removed the subjectivity in defining such structures by describing them from the point of view of an observer: “a reasonable observer, looking to its physical characteristics and activities, would not consider it to be designed to any practical degree for carrying people or things on water.”




In early July opponents of such structures launched a petition on Change.org that drew 698 signatories. “Matanzas inlet has been a nice quite place to enjoy sunsets and more with your family,” the petition stated. “The past year it has been completely trashed by Hurricane Watersports. They have rentals, loud music, and trash this area.”

The St. Johns County Commission in June had approved on first reading a ban on such structures. Its ordinance found that the arbitrary anchoring of floating structures creates a hazard to the safety of others in the area, damages environmentally sensitive aquatic habitats, compromises nagivational safety through the potential discharge of sewage, oil, or other hazardous substances, and could be difficult to remove in emergencies.

The petition ensured final approval on Aug. 1. Duval County had already banned them. But that left Flagler County waters open to them. Friends of A1A had supported the St. Johns ordinance but “the monstrosity at Matanzas Inlet,” Friends of A1A’s Dennis Clark wrote Hadeed in late June, “may end up moving into Flagler County, or something else like it, so it seems like a good idea for Flagler County to adopt.”

In his monthly conferences with other county and city attorneys in the region, Hadeed learned more about the issue and of the ongoing concerns at Matanzas Inlet and elsewhere, as in the Panhandle and along the Gulf. “These things would grow, they would connect to each other. In other words,” he said, “like a flotilla of floating structures, they became party places, so it’d be places for trash, it’d be crazy places for unruly behavior.”




Mindful of the county’s environmental resources, he noted Flagler County’s investment in protecting an estuarine system going back to the 1980s, and the county’s generally narrower navigable waterways, all of which could be affected by floating structures.

“Because of these factors, Flagler County needs to exercise its delegated authority from the State to regulate floating structures,” he wrote county commissioners in a July 28 memo (written past midnight). “Aside from congesting the movement of boat traffic in our waterways, such structures introduce not just waterway hazards but also discharges into the waterways that compromise our resources. For example, we need to maintain our Class II water quality for the waterways north of Bings Park to the Marineland Marina. And we do not want to degrade the water quality for areas south of Bings.” (The state defines Class II as “Generally coastal waters where shellfish harvesting occurs.”)

“This is one of the only regulatory tools the Legislature has left us with in terms of navigable waters,” Hadeed wrote commissioners.

Commissioner Andy Dance just last Saturday, a few days after the ordinance passed, saw one such floating structure beached on sand along the Intracoastal. “I was out on the Intracoastal this past Saturday with family, and headed north to Matanzas Inlet,” he wrote in a text, attaching the picture that appears atop this article. “Along the way, I spotted this structure abandoned on the bank of the Intracoastal.” He was in north Flagler County. “Apparently, this is the structure that was chased out of St Johns due to SJC passing a floating structure ordinance, and the reason Al brought this issue to the Commission. It is not a registered watercraft and has no motor.”




County Commissioner Dave Sullivan was curious about the ordinance’s effect on the two floating homes at the Flagler Beach marina, owned by Howard Sklar. The two homes have been anchored there for years. Hadeed said those structures would not be affected by the ordinance (“houseboats are expressly exempt in the ordinance,” he said), nor would be similarly anchored structures in other marinas, nor would barges or jackup rigs.

“The issue of the house boats themselves, it’s kind of moot because if you built one and you had one you would have to be tied up in a marina to get services,” Commission Chairman Greg Hansen said. “Bait runners,” as Commissioner Leann Pennington described them, selling bait on boats would also not be affected.

Violators may be punished by a fine of up to $500 per day or imprisonment of up to 60 days in jail. The county has the authority to dismantle the structures, if a 21-day notice posted on the structure is ignored (24 hours in case of an impending tropical storm).

The ordinance passed with a 5-0 vote.