St. Michaels Boat-Slip Rules Go to Commissioners: Own a Boat to Apply, Carry Insurance, No Rafting

ST. MICHAELS, MARYLAND — Boaters waiting for a town slip in St. Michaels would have to own a boat when they apply and carry liability insurance once they get a slip, and would get yearly renewal notices by Nov. 1, under an ordinance the town commissioners are set to introduce Wednesday.

Ordinance 576 rewrites the waitlist section of the town's boating chapter and replaces its section on slip requirements and use. The ordinance says the town's Waterways Management Advisory Board reviewed the chapter at multiple meetings and recommends the changes.

The ordinance strikes the $150 application fee and $20 renewal fee from the town code and points to the town fee schedule instead. The draft fee schedule on the same agenda (Resolution 2026-06) lists $100 for a waitlist application, up from $50, and $100 for the yearly renewal, up from $25. Commercial watermen with active Maryland licenses stay exempt from the application fee; the ordinance strikes the April 1, 2021, cutoff. The ordinance adds a requirement that the town send renewal notices by Nov. 1 each year. Boat ownership would be required at the time of application, though not for people already on the list before the ordinance is adopted. Multiple applications from people at the same residence would not be allowed, and applicants using a post office box would have to give their street address.

When a slip opens, the town would call and email the person at the top of the list. If there is no answer in five days, a certified letter follows, and the applicant has seven days from the mailing date to respond. Someone who turns down a slip that fits the boat would come off the list and go to the end if they reapply. Slips would go only to boats with at least a foot of width to spare beyond the beam, and boats could extend no more than 5 feet past the last pilings, except watermen's boats.

The rewritten usage section keeps existing rules: slip holders have 30 days to pay and sign; only Maryland-registered boats may use town slips; no one may live aboard, and a person aboard between 11:30 p.m. and 5 a.m. is presumed to be living there unless protecting the boat from imminent danger; each boat must leave under its own power twice a year; the town may remove a boat that stays sunk 30 days, at the holder's expense; and chartering, rentals and holding more than one harbor slip and one Back Creek slip are barred. New in the draft are the liability insurance requirement and a ban on rafting boats together.

The ordinance keeps the existing cap of 15 watermen's slips in the town harbor, including slips 1 and 2 at the loading dock off Harbor Road, and the rule that a slip vacated by a waterman may go to a recreational boater with a valid Maryland boat registration if no other waterman wants it and it stays vacant for a year.

Wednesday is only the introduction. The ordinance calls for a public hearing at least six and no more than 70 days after it is introduced, and it would take effect 20 days after adoption. At the commissioners' Oct. 14 meeting, Town Manager Don Richardson reported that staff, the town attorney and the advisory board were developing the amendments.

The commissioners meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28, at the St. Michaels Community Center, 103 Railroad Ave., with a Zoom livestream listed on the town's meeting page.