RV advocates urge council to ‘go slow’ on parking ban
The city is preparing to spend nearly $1 million on 2,600 area-restriction signs
MOUNTAIN VIEW » About 2,600 parking restriction signs are set to go up across the city at a cost of nearly $1 million as the City Council begins discussions today about a ban on RVs in most of the city’s streets.
After Mountain View voters overwhelmingly supported banning RVs from the city’s narrow streets with 57% of the vote, council members — including two newly elected members — are now tasked with enforcing the new rules and dealing with the consequences, starting with discussions dur ing today ’ s meeting.
With firm support from voters, now dozens of people living in RVs could soon be displaced as the city aims to put up 2,600 parking restriction signs on 444 streets across the city at a cost of about $980,000. Much of the city’s downtown will be restricted to RV parking.
Since the beginning of the decade, more and more RVs and oversized vehicles have continued to park along the city’s streets as rising home prices force people in precarious living conditions. With public outcry growing, the City Council approved taking the unusual step of placing the measure on the ballot by a 4- 3 vote even after opponents of the ban collected enough signatures for a referendum to overturn it.
Rather than rescind the ordinance, the council decided early this year to put the question to voters. In the Bay Area, Berkeley also prohibits RV parking on certain city streets, but its council members didn’t ask voters to make that call.
One of the largest concentrations of RV and vehicle dwellers in Mountain View is on Crisanto Avenue near Rengstorff Park, where dozens of people have gathered to form an impromptu community of homeless families, young people and elderly.
In a message to Mountain View residents, the Housing Justice Coalition called on supporters to bombard the council with messages urging them to “go slow” on implementing the RV ban. As of now, the first signs are set to go up along streets in the Monta Loma, Farley and Rock neighborhood area in April.
“We know that the voters passed Measure C, and that is it the council’s job to move ahead to implement Measure C,” said Edie Keating, head of the Housing Justice Coalition, in the message. “But the council still has choices. There are important reasons for the council to move slowly.”
Keating noted that the City Council could adopt one of the alternatives city staff will present to members today, including one that would phase in the cost of signs and materials over three to five years.
She said choosing this slower and less ex pensive option — it only costs about $200,000 — “means more money for other urgent needs, less community disruption during COVID and more flexibility to adapt to future fiscal needs or any legal challenges to Measure C.”
The fear of litigation is one that the city should take seriously. In September 2019, the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, the ACLU and the Disability Rights Advocates wrote that they were prepared to challenge the ordinance in court because it is “unconditional and would also violate state and federal law.”