This article first appeared in this morning’s (Aug. 14) Daily Post. Want to read all of the new when it’s fresh? Pick up a copy at 1,000 Mid-Peninsula locations.
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto council members yesterday proposed their twofold solution to RV dwellers crowding city streets — giving them permits and only allowing them on one side of the street.
The city would offer permits for 20 RV dwellers to park on Coyote Hill Road outside the Stanford Research Park and for 17 RV dwellers to park at the end of Embarcadero Road by the sewage treatment plant.
On 22 blocks in industrial and commercial areas, the city would put up signs allowing parking on one side of the street, with the restrictions alternating sides every six months.
The idea was proposed yesterday by a council committee of Ed Lauing, Keith Reckdahl and Julie Lythcott-Haims. The full council will consider the proposal on Aug. 24.
“This program design balances the need to address impacts of oversized vehicles with legal, practical and humanitarian considerations,” City Manager Ed Shikada said in a report for council.
The permit program is intended to move RV dwellers away from businesses and neighbrhoods. RV dwellers would be required to have insurance, follow a “good neighbor agreement,” work on finding housing and pay $15 per month.
The city would do landscaping on Coyote Hill Road to prevent wildfires and paint new lines on Embarcadero Road so RVs don’t block bike lanes, Shikada said.
Both areas would get portable toilets and trash bins.
But the permitted areas can only handle a fraction of Palo Alto’s 133 RV dwellers, as the city counted on May 6.
Business owners have complained about RV dwellers blocking bike lanes and driveways, scaring off customers and employees, stealing water and electricity and dumping trash and sewage.
On impacted blocks, the city is proposing to put up signs that limit parking to one side of the street from January to June and the other side from July to December.
The city will measure success by getting feedback from businesses and looking at spillover parking in neighborhoods, Shikada said.
Both the permit program and the parking restrictions are considered pilots, expected to last one year.
The pilots would cost $823,800, while citywide restrictions would cost $4.5 million to design and install signs and to monitor and enforce restrictions, Shikada said.
“A pilot will not fully resolve impacts outside the pilot geography. For example, unpermitted oversized vehicles could move from pilot areas into non-pilot areas,” Shikada said.
The following streets will have parking restricted on alternating sides for six months at a time:
• 4000 block of Transport Street
• 900 block of Commercial Street
• 900 block of Industrial Avenue
• 100 block of Page Mill Road
• 2800-3200 block of Park Boulevard
• 200-400 block of Olive Avenue
• 2900 and 3200 block of Ash Street
• 200-400 block of Lambert Avenue
• 1000 block of Elwell Court
• 1000 block of Corporation Way
• 1000 block of East Meadow Circle
• 2400 block of Embarcadero Way
• 2400 block of Faber Place
RVs blocking bike lanes? Solving this problem forces council to deal with two of its favorite special interest groups — the homeless and the bicycling coalition. I guess council has said to the bikers, screw you.
Is the city adding to the police budget to allow them to hire more officers to enforce the laws that these OSV residents will break? Why not?
Thanks for expanding the area where I can park my RV. And now I won’t have to move it for 6 months! Whoopie! I thank every council member who came up with this idea. Palo Alto is so generous.
“The full council will consider the proposal on Aug. 24.”
“RVs blocking bike lanes? Solving this problem forces council to deal with two of its favorite special interest groups — the homeless and the bicycling coalition. I guess council has said to the bikers, screw you.”
The bikers shouldn’t take it personally since they said the same thing to all of the residents, including the 165+ taxpayers on Robert Marinaro’s bi-weekly report tracking the OSVs for the l.5 years on which every council member was copied but were too too busy to respond to questions and concerns addressed to them.
Does this mean they’ll vote on it on Aug 24?
If so, how absolutely shameful that they’re finally having their long-delayed community listening session the same day which means there’s NO community input even though many legitimate objections have been made to specifics of the plan as well how the “process” was conducted over the last few years.
Just get rid of the damn things. Enough is enough. Required to “have insurance.” Get real.
“Good neighbor agreement” will last as long as it takes for an RV dweller to drop a bowel movement on a Palo Alto resident’s front lawn.
This is very discriminatory! Some neighborhoods are enjoying RV free environment with no impact on housing value while others- mostly in less affluent neighborhoods are suffering from pollution, noise, reduced walkability, and plummeting house value. Way to go city councils – instead of fixing the issue you are making it worse – we pay our taxes just like everyone else and deserve to be afforded the same rights as the rest of the city. How many city council members are impacted by RVs?
Has our mayor and city council gone completely insane? Instead of just enforcing the law and towing these vehicles out of here they are going to spend five million dollars of our money putting up signs that allow illegal parking year round, as long as you move from one side of the street to the other every six months. Who came up with this crackpot idea??? Certainly not the residents of Palo Alto who these officials are supposed to represent. Stop following your own agenda and spend that money putting up no overnight parking signs and enforcing it!!
Just when you think the city is going to do the right thing and enforce existing laws, they say “Hold my vanilla half caf non-fat organic latte” and then proceed to come up with idiotic non-solutions. Nice job! These fools should be required to host two RV’s in front of their houses until they finally decide to solve this problem.
No one is looking forward to city maintained Porta-potties on the street in front of small businesses. After watching OSV dwellers steal power and water while filling our bins with trash and dumping sewage into the drains, I can well imagine what those porta-potties will look and smell like. I do not want them outside of the front door to my business. I suggest we put them on the sidewalk in front of the mayor’s house instead.
What are they thinking? Instead of protecting the citizens and the business community of Palo Alto, they are seeking a “balance” for illegally parked vehicles. Enforce the laws universally across the city. No picking and choosing who benefits from the law. The city council was elected to represent the tax-paying voters of this city. They appear to have forgotten that. Is a recall on the horizon? Is that what it’s going to take to get them to rethink their approach to this issue?
Whatever makes your think the RV dwellers aren’t taxpayers.
Property taxes, Vee. Not sales tax. Not income tax. Property tax, which covers city services, FD, PD, schools, and many other things.
Utility taxes since a full one third of our PA Utility bills are taxes and surcharges. (Trust me. I added this up after wondering why my bill was so ridiculously high when we’f been away for most of the billing period.)
And that’s not counting the extra $25.000,000 we’re charged each and every year allowing the city to OVERcharge us — ie legally inflate our bills — so the money can be channeled into the General Fund. of various types and $25.000.000.
this is insane! I rather not raising our utilities bills than spending monies on more RVs in our town. I don’t feel safe to walk in the East Meadow Circle anymore when RVs are parked there. Let along those work there. Enough is enough.