Palo Alto City Council voted 6-1 tonight (Dec. 8) to ban detached trailers and the renting of RVs by so-called “vanlords.”
With little discussion council approved a pair of ordinances — one that would make it illegal to leave a trailer that’s not attached to a vehicle on a city street and another that would outlaw the practice of renting out an RV parked on the street. Under the vanlording ordinance, it would be illegal to rent out an RV as a living space, store an RV that you plan to lease on the street or charge someone for a street parking spot.
The ban begins immediately and carries a fine of $500 under a new penalty schedule that’s also on the docket. While the ban on detached trailers begins right away, police won’t enforce it until two weeks after signs outlining the new rules are posted.
Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haims voted no, saying that she gets the outrage over the increase in RVs in town, she’s concerned about the lack of progress in figuring out where RV dwellers ought to go. Many who Lythcott-Haims has spoken to work in town and nearby, but can’t afford rent, so they live in RVs. She wants to see an increase in lots for RVs, which she said is the greater challenge in dealing with the RVs on the streets.
The city, which already prohibits cars from being parked for more than 72 hours, hopes to start putting up signs in December and have the project completed by the spring. Both ordinances are part of council’s push to prevent people from living in RVs on city streets.
At its Oct. 20 meeting, council approved the first phase of a four-part plan to get RVs off the street. The rest of the plan, which was recommended by the Policy and Services Committee, would look at introducing safe RV parking locations and sanitation services to people living in RVs, while banning the vehicles from certain streets and creating new permit requirements.
The Oct. 20 vote created a temporary committee of council members to discuss how to better enforce the city’s existing restrictions.
The city also hired LifeMoves, a nonprofit that works with homeless people to find them stable housing, to notify people living in RVs about the 200-bed HomeKey shelter, set to open in early 2026, and other resources in the area.
Palo Alto has around 420 homeless residents, according to a survey done by Santa Clara County in January, 73% of whom live out of their vehicles,
Residents and businesses have complained that the number of RVs takes away room on the street and parking spots, and that people living in RVs sometimes dump wastewater into city sewers.
It will cost the city over $7 million, around $4 million of which would go to putting up new parking signs around town with the additional restrictions, and take two years to complete.
4 million to put up signs? I want that contract. Our city workers, who we already pay, are not qualified to dig a hole and set a sign post? They need training on how to attach a metal sign? What exactly is the cost of just one sign? Are you going to post them on streets that don’t have RV problems in front of their home? We can’t shoot geese in the parks but we don’t need signs telling us that. Just enforce the law and a sign won’t be needed. How many different languages should be on the signs? This is ridiculous. Just enforce the law.
So Ms Lythcott-Haims wants Palo Alto to wait to do anything about the vans and the profiteering vanlords until the city solves the homeless problem?
How rigidly unrealistic and hypocritical.
I don’t see her refusing to approve housing developments cutting the number of affordable units until all the very low income and low income residents are housed.
Why should the city provide a free parking lot for RVs? Charge RVs for staying in the lot overnight and ban them everywhere else.
$4 million and two years to complete a signage program. Please tell me that’s a misprint. Please.
The $4 million for signage was the largest expense among alternatives presented to the city staff to the council a month ago. It would have covered signage throughout the city, including all residential streets, rather than focusing on the areas where RVs are parked. The council did not support that aspect.
Mr. Burt – Your comment is unclearly written – are you saying that Council did not approve the $4 million for signage?
Parents have been asking the City of Palo Alto to paint curbs red to reflect daylighting laws – if they cannot do it all over the City, we would like crosswalks near elementary schools painted, at least. As I hope you know, the parking restrictions are to improve sightlines for pedestrians, i.e. to make it less likely they’ll get hit by cars. Other municipalities are painting curbs red to help enforce daylighting laws – and thereby help pedestrians stay safe. Palo Alto has not done anything along those lines and has nothing in the works to improve safety, per staff.
The City of Palo Alto has replied that red paint is too expensive to paint the curbs. What are your thoughts on this?
Council has been unresponsive to resident concerns on this to date, but if you’re going to hang out in the comments section…what say you?
Wait, the City is =not= blowing $4 million on something? Surprised that slipped past the Post.