BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council has 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 on Monday (Oct. 19) 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 vi-brant,” he told council.
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 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 re-strictions, 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.
Monday’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.
This is getting ridiculous. The RV retiree lifestyle has been a part of American culture for decades and now that housing has out priced it people are taking the cheaper option. That is not homelessness. Even if you view it as such, homeless people have as much right to public parking as anyone else. If they create a disturbance, litter, or commit REAL crimes, then deal with those individuals. Don’t outlaw all RVers from visiting family for lack of legal parking options!
Nobody is disputing that RV travel has been part of American culture for decades. The issue is the deliberate misuse of public parking as a substitute for affordable housing, often indefinitely, while expecting everyone else to absorb the consequences. Public parking is not a free campground, and the right to park a vehicle does not include the right to turn it into a permanent residence on public streets. Residents have every bit as much right to safe, clean, accessible streets without having to deal with accumulated trash, blocked sidewalks, and the impacts of long-term encampments. Calling it an RV lifestyle doesn’t magically make it something else. Visit family? Fine. Travel? Fine. But don’t conflate recreational RV use with long-term residential occupation of public space and then demand that everyone else accommodate it. The expectation that everyone else should simply accept the indefinite use of public space as a personal living arrangement is itself a form of entitlement.