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For years, shabby boats have moored and piled up all along B.C.’s coast.

Derelict vessels have become a regular fixture in areas like Victoria’s Gorge waterway, or the “Dogpatch,” an open water lot off of Ladysmith.

Many of the boats sit empty, in poor condition and barely staying above water.

WATCH: Ladysmith moves toward removing derelict boats

For a long time, it seemed as though municipalities couldn’t do a thing about them. They tried to enforce their bylaws, with no success.

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But all that changed with a B.C. Supreme Court ruling which said that cities’ zoning regulations don’t intrude on federal jurisdiction over navigation and shipping.

“The judge ruled that as a city, we have the ability to regulate land use on that water lot in the same way that we have the ability to regulate land use on land,” Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, speaking of the Gorge, told Global News. Tweet This

What this means is that those who live on boats sitting out in the Gorge have until May 7 to vacate the area and go someplace else.

“If they don’t, they’ll be in contempt of court,” Helps said.

“They’ll essentially be breaking the law and they’ll need to be removed.”

READ MORE: Eviction notices issued to boats in Ladysmith’s ‘Dogpatch’

Derelict boats are an issue on coasts right across Canada, and Prime Minsiter Justin Trudeau has promised to tackle the problem through the Oceans Protection Plan.

If you ask the federal NDP, they don’t think the problem should have grown so much that it came to this.

“That’s why we’ve been calling for a comprehensive coast-wide solution,” said Sheila Malcolmson, the NDP MP for Nanaimo-Ladysmith. Tweet This

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“So this gets dealt with by the federal government where it belongs, in partnership with local communities, but you can’t just do this patchwork.

Even if municipalities manage to clear the boats out of their waters, there remains a concern that they’ll just moor somewhere else.

“They’re going to move to some other location on the coast,” said Joe Spears of the Horseshoe Bay Marine Group.

“Whether it’s in Brentwood Bay or Cadboro Bay, or heaven forbid, Ganges on Salt Spring Island.”

With files from Jon Azpiri