Sausalito City Council Blocks Sale of Pelican Harbor Marina
The Sausalito City Council has denied a request by Bridgeway Marina owner Cameron Razavi to lease tidelands* beneath the neighboring marina at Pelican Harbor. The council’s 4-0 vote, taken at a special council meeting last Thursday, May 14, means Razavi’s proposed $13.4 million purchase cannot go ahead.
According to the Marin Independent Journal, when word got out that Pelican Harbor’s current owners had asked the city to transfer the tidelands lease to a new limited liability corporation owned by Razavi’s wife, Christina Suh, a number of Pelican’s residents approached the council to step in “until another buyer was found,” citing Razavi’s record as the proprietor of Bridgeway Marina as reason for disqualification.
Sausalito Assistant City Manager Brandon Phipps, City Attorney Sergio Rudin and city building inspectors released a report on Wednesday that included Razavi’s “qualifications and suitability.” The report contained a long list of documented “code enforcement issues” such as illegal construction, illegal floating docks, inadequate wastewater discharge procedures and several other items.
Ahead of Thursday’s meeting, the council had received 15 letters from people opposing the lease transfer; many people attended the meeting and spoke out in person against the proposal.
Sausalito sailor and friend of Latitude John “Woody” Skoriak says he spoke with Mayor Steven Woodside prior to the meeting and shared with him some of the harbor’s history. “I told him about all the famous (and ‘infamous’) boats that sailed through Pelican, like Lord Jim, Spike Africa and Lizard King, as well as all the beautiful wooden power and sail boats that were there year-round,” Woody tells us. “And some years later, Sterling Hayden’s son Dana lived there.” Woody also shared a little about who, how and when the marina was built and its philosophy of “wooden boats only.” (Here’s a little background on Pelican Harbor). “Hard to push something through Sausalito when the only one for the project is the petitioner and everyone else, and I mean everyone else, is against it,” he added.
*Note: As we understand it, the marina or harbor operator must control the land-side portion of the property — the parking lot, shore access, utilities and related infrastructure. In Sausalito this is generally referred to as the “Tidelands Lease.”