The Boat US magazine currently has an article about the demise of
marinas as the land goes to condos and our local paper is running a
series about Florida coasts becoming overbuilt while at the same time
there was a recent article about the Federal flood insurance program
being insolvent due to the recent hurricanes. I say that these three
problems all have the same source; Government subsidies of insurance
for risky coastal areas has made development of coastal property into a
risk free-high pay-off investment. Ending or phasing out these
subsidies would go a long way to alleviating these problems.
Here in FL, the state govt insists that if a company wants to write
any homeowner policies in the state, they also must insure some homes
in risky arreas. The state even has an insurance company that is the
insurer of last resort for very risky areas. The rest of us who own
inland property subsidize this through increased premiums. The feds
also sell flood insurance on coastal property that is otherwise
uninsurable and FEMA pays to rebuild expensive second homes when they
are destroyed. This means that the risk to a person who wants to
convert marina space to condos is nearly zero.