ALAMEDA – Anxious residents of the Barnhill Marina floating homes community reached out to the city earlier this month after being told their rent could be hiked at least 30% by the harbor’s new owner.

But they can stop worrying for now because the City Council unanimously decided Thursday to apply Alameda’s rent stabilization ordinance and Covid-19 eviction moratorium to the dockside houses of 66 residents at the marina near 2394 Mariner Square Drive.

“I follow and work hard on addressing homelessness in our city…and one of the ways you prevent homelessness is not allowing it to happen in the first place,” Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft said.

Residents of the floating community, half of whom are over age 65 and several are low-income, have compared their situation to that of mobile home residents who also typically own their homes but lease space in the Bay Area’s few remaining affordable pockets.

Mayumi Stroye, a member of Barnhill Marina’s fair rent team, said during Thursday’s meeting that the average monthly rent is $608 and the new landlord wanted to increase that to $1,074. A member of the new owner’s management team said in an interview they could not confirm or deny those figures.

The council’s action was a relief to marina residents.

“As a senior, single woman, I feel very secure here, and there’s a great community that watches out for other people and that feels very comforting,” said Betty Gladden, who moved to Barnhill Marina in November. “When you go in, just a couple months ago, thinking one thing and then all of a sudden you turn around and [get] slapped in the face with something else, it’s a little bit difficult to swallow.”

When they went to City Manager Eric Levitt, marina residents asked that he press for an emergency ordinance to freeze their rent 90 days while the city explores expanding the rent stabilization ordinance to include floating homes.

The council did them one better by expanding the ordinance’s reach immediately and making it retroactive to April 14.

Passed in 2019, the ordinance caps how much rent can be raised annually, protects tenants from eviction without just cause, requires relocation assistance if tenants must be moved, regulates buyout agreements and prohibits landlord retaliation against tenants.

In a letter to the new marina owners sent a few weeks ago, special counsel Adam Radinsky of the Alameda City Attorney’s Office  warned that state law bars residential landlords from raising rents above specified rates — usually by more than 5% in a 12-month period.

The marina had long been owned by the Barnhill family. Its patriarch, Audley Vernon “Barney’ Barnhill, bought the then-dilapidated boatyard in the 1960s and renamed it Barnhill Marina and Boatyard.

With the help of naval architect and yacht broker Richard Boland, Barnhill designed and built many of the floating homes that are still at the marina. Since his death in 2014, Barnhill Construction Co. has closed. Barnhill’s wife, Lai, was the CEO of the company when it dissolved in January.

In December, the Barnhill family sold the property to an anonymous limited liability company in Wyoming called BHM&S LLC for $9.1 million. Seven days later, BHM&S sold three of the four marina parcels to Valley Investments-Redwoods of Richmond for $12.75 million, according to an email Levitt forwarded to this news organization.

BHM&S is renting the fourth parcel to Valley Investments for $7,800 per month, according to documents from the sale.

The Barnhill family did not respond to requests for an interview but noted that marina residents have been aware of their desire to sell the property for two years.

Drishti Narang. the daughter of Valley Investments-Redwood manager Amar Narang, told the City Council she recently purchased a floating home in Barnhill Marina.

In an interview, Narang said she has “done a lot of work to try and engage with this community.” She added that the management team has met with residents to gauge their vision for the marina.

The Barnhill family was not running a cost-sustainable operation, she said in an email.