BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council tonight (Oct. 19) approved an expanded ban on RVs parking in residential neighborhoods, despite a push from residents and business owners for the city to go further.
Council voted 6-1 to ban RVs within 100 feet of any home from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. The city will put up signs about the ban at 50 entrances to the city for $140,000, City Manager Ed Shikada said in a report for council.
Councilman Ed Lauing voted against the expanded ban because he wanted to see a map of affected areas and to discuss a ban further than 100 feet.
Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce Charlie Weidanz said the expanded ban will push RV dwellers further into business areas.
“Our long-term economic stability relies on keeping our commercial districts competitive, accessible and vibrant,” he told council tonight.
Resident Winter Dellenbach said Weidanz should ask the chamber’s members to provide RV parking outside their businesses. She compared the signs coming to the entrances to Palo Alto to “sundown towns,” or all-white cities that had signs telling Black and Mexican residents to leave by sunset.
“It’s not a good look for our city,” she said.
The city’s current RV 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 that are zoned for only residential developments have an RV ban. But areas that are zoned for a mix of homes and businesses — like the Ventura neighborhood and around East Meadow Circle — haven’t had restrictions, resulting in a concentration of RVs there.
“That’s just unfair, and we need to address that and make a more uniform policy toward the residential areas,” Councilman Keith Reckdahl said at an Aug. 24 meeting.
Tonight’s vote will ban RVs near any homes, regardless of the zoning designation.
The city is permitting RVs on two streets at the edges of the city, but the streets have space for less than half of the city’s 130 RV dwellers.
Will expanding the ban do any good? AS a biracial white/Asian who grew up in Palo Alto I guess our family was exempt from having to “leave by sunset.” How offensive.
Good for Ed Lauing for voting against this do nothing nonsense!
The rest of council and senior staff should be ashamed for allowing this problem to persist for decades affecting property owners residents and businesses alike. 100 feet is not adequate. It is a meaningless gesture. If it’s a problem in front of a property how is it not a problem 100 feet away?
What I find offensive is the time-consuming game our “leaders” play pretending to listen to businesses, residents and the 200+ subscribers to Bob Marino’s OSV list about the inadequacy of the 100 ft ban. Mayor Veenker SEEMED to agree with the reasons presented and promised to change staff’s proposed ban to 500 ft — and then did nothing while crowing about all the progress the city’s making! Mr Shikada claimed changes would undermine the city’s “urgency” by having to start over.
Congratulations to Ed Lauing as the ONLY city council member sensible enough to have “voted against the expanded ban because he wanted to see a map of affected areas and to discuss a ban further than 100 feet.”
The city’s STILL hiding which areas and streets are affected??? Why??? It’s bad enough staff can’t collect any data on the RV dwellers but they can’t even supply a map???
Speaking of inaction, from last weeks’ police blotter:
Oct 6. 9:38 am — Bridget Li, 52, of Mountain View, given an administrative citation for advertising rentals of RVs for living or sleeping at Palo Alto Police Department, 250 Sherman Ave.
Our “leaders’ have known about Ms Li for at LEAST 13 months when she was profiled September (2025) as the “Vanlord for the Lord” who claims renting out multiple RVs is her calling. Why they done NOTHING about her (and the other vanlords still advertising) for so long??? WHY they just give her a meaningless citation without even a fine? Is this just their CYA to claim they’re doing something?
How stupid and inattentive do the Mayor, City Manager and City Council think Palo Alto taxpayers and voters are?? It’s insulting.
Her full name is Kate Bridget Li. Kate Brigitte Li’s grand ambition: to become Palo Alto’s next Transportation Commissioner or, failing that, settle for Parks and Rec. Truly, the stuff of political greatness
Tax Payer, I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not but since this is Palo Alto where one can get the Santa Clara Democratic Party endorsement by saying “I’m bisexual and I bicycle” anything is possible.
[Comment deleted — Terms of Violation.]
I think Winter D’s comparison is extreme. It attempts to shift the narrative to being one about race, which it isn’t. Residents and businesses in areas that are overwhelmed by OSVs have been subjected to serious health and safety issues. Lack of enforcement of existing ordinances, despite obvious infractions, has resulted in the problem growing into a far bigger one than it ever needed to be. What is wanted and needed is a solution that will work well for residents and businesses. An additional problem to solve is the housing need for those van dwellers with limited options. Practically speaking, whatever is done will likely need to focus (at least at first) on those who were Palo Alto residents prior to living in their car/van/osv.
It is pretty clear that steps taken so far on the housing issue have had, at best, minimal positive impact. Does any official entity keep metrics on this? Are our legislators (at all levels) willing to acknowledge that they need to adjust the approach being taken and provide funding instead of just more legislation that makes building unaffordable “affordable housing” easier to build but doesn’t move the needle on affordable housing?
Comparing these signs to “sundown towns” is about as woke as it gets—and a gross distortion of the issue. Palo Alto has residents from all over the world, including Chinese immigrants who speak little or no English, and they are welcomed as members of our community. Nobody is suggesting they don’t belong here.
The issue is not ethnicity, race, or who is welcome in Palo Alto. It is whether people should be permitted to camp in RVs on public streets or use public facilities as campgrounds in violation of the law. Equating the enforcement of public-space rules with the historical exclusion of racial minorities is a false equivalence that obscures the actual question: How is it fair to the rest of the community to allow some people to use public streets and facilities as their personal campgrounds when everyone else is expected to follow the rules? Fair and consistent enforcement of the law is not discrimination.
Meanwhile, Ed Shikada is once again running amok, with seemingly no one willing to rein him in or demand accountability. Palo Alto needs consistent enforcement of its rules, not inflammatory comparisons that distract from the real issue. Fair and consistent enforcement of the law is not discrimination.