BY NORAH SHEPPARD-HUTCHINS
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto isn’t the only Mid-Peninsula city grappling with an influx of people living in RVs on city streets.
San Carlos City Council tomorrow will discuss how to deal with complaints from businesses about RVs on the east city of that city.
Council looking at limiting parking to daytime hours and increasing fines.
The controversy in San Carlos is emerging as Palo Alto residents and businesses have been trying to get the city to outlaw RVs from parking in front of homes and businesses. The problem exploded last year when Caltrans put bike lanes on El Camino Real, forcing the RVs that had parked there to find other streets to occupy.
On Oct. 19, Palo Alto City Council voted to ban RVs within 100 feet of any home from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
San Carlos is considering parking hours for RVs, too. The proposal before council would limit parking in the commercial areas of the city’s east side to four hours between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.
The city already has a law banning RVs from parking on public streets between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., but those tickets cost $50. Assistant City Manager Nil Blackburn suggested council raise the cost of the first ticket to $100, then $200 and $500 for subsequent tickets.
Council expressed an interest in banning RVs at an April 27 meeting, but nearly all outright RV bans Blackburn researched have been challenged in court. The only one that is still standing is a ban on oversized vehicles in Watsonville that was passed earlier this year with the goal of getting large agricultural trucks to stop taking up on-street parking, and doesn’t really target RVs, according to Blackburn.
Survey
Since the April 27 meeting, the city put out a survey to hear residents and businesses thoughts on RVs. The city got responses from 52 residents and 18 businesses.
The 52 residents were split on whether RV parking is truly an issue, with 28 saying it is and 24 saying it’s not. Meanwhile, only two business owners said it’s not an issue, while 14 said it is (two participants did not answer that question).
Business owners said the long-term parking has restricted parking for employees and customers in the survey.
“I wanted to bring to your attention that the RV situation along Commercial Street appears to be worsening. Several RVs have remained parked in the same location for over a week without moving,” Ryan Balzer, owner of W.F. Batton Management Company at 1000 Commercial St., wrote to Police Chief Michael Tabak on July 1.
RVs have also gotten in the way of equipment deliveries for businesses, according to a Sept. 14 email sent to Tabak by Don Arata, owner of Arata Equipment Company at 1655 Old County Road.
Business blocked
“As of last Wednesday (Sept. 9), we now have had nine instances (in the last 10 weeks) where we could not get parts and pieces that we sell delivered to our business because of the oversized vehicles that have been parked directly across the street from our facility,” Arata said.
Other business owners have said RV parking has become less of an issue in the following months.
“I am not sure what you or the Sheriff’s department implemented, but there are no more issues with parking for the last month,” Tony Barulich, the owner of Camco Furnace at 1017 Bransten Road, wrote to Management Analyst Quinne Wooley on July 6.
I’m sure building more $3,000 studios will help.