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BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council is set to expand a ban on RVs parking overnight in residential neighborhoods.
The expanded ban will cover streets around East Meadow Circle, along Fabian Way and in the Ventura neighborhood while business owners wait for the city to address RVs on their streets. The city will need to put up signs at 50 entrances to the city for $140,000, City Manager Ed Shikada said in a report for council.
The city’s current ban goes from 2 to 6 a.m. and depends on the zoning, or the designation of what can get built on a property.
Neighborhoods zoned for only residential developments have an RV ban. But areas that are zoned for a mix of homes and businesses don’t have a ban currently.
That’s left a concentration of RVs in certain neighborhoods in south Palo Alto.
“That’s just unfair, and we need to address that and make a more uniform policy towards the residential areas,” Councilman Keith Reckdahl said at an Aug. 24 meeting.
So council on Oct. 19 will consider banning RVs on any street within 100 feet of a home and expanding the hours from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
At the same time, the city is working to permit around 40 RVs on Embarcadero Road and Coyote Hill Road starting next year.
The roads can fit less than half of the city’s 130 RVs. Many residents, council candidates and business owners have called for a citywide ban.
Problems for stores
Chamber of Commerce CEO Charlie Weidanz said RV dwellers are creating blind spots, taking away customer parking, stealing utilities and littering.
“Palo Alto’s small businesses cannot continue to operate under these conditions,” he told council.
City Attorney Chris Jensen said ongoing lawsuits create legal uncertainty, and there’s no definitive law that says what Palo Alto can do.
Cities that have successfully regulated RV dwellers, like San Francisco, have made help available to transition them out of RVs, Jensen said.
“So it looks like you’re trying to solve the problem rather than target people,” Jensen told council.
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