ACLU objects to ban on RV parking
The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California is appealing a new city law banning overnight RV street parking.
The 12-page appeal, filed Monday and cosigned by Disability Rights Advocates and citizens Abbi Samuels, Peter Gelblum and Veronica Crow, is the second formal opposition to the city's Oversized Vehicle Ordinance this month. Reggie Meisler, on behalf of community group Santa Cruz Cares, filed a similar appeal dated Jan. 13, the day after city Zoning Administrator Samantha Haschert approved coastal and design permits for the ordinance. Santa Cruz Cares advocates for a compassionate approach to solving the homelessness crisis.
In effect, the overnight parking ban “effectively prohibits people from residing in ‘oversized vehicles' (‘OSVs;) within the City,” and would “have a disproportionate impact on marginalized groups, driving people of color, people with disabilities and low-income people out of the City,” if enforced, the ACLU appeal states. As a condition of the coastal permit approval, the city will need to establish at least one designated overnight RV parking location before implementing the midnight to 5 a.m. daily ban.
The appeal letter describes impacts the overnight parking ban may have on appellate Crow, a 70-year-old living on a fixed income living with disabilities in her oversized vehicle. Crow, according to the appeal, has been unsuccessful in securing a position in the private Association of Faith Communities' safe parking program and cannot afford local housing.
“Thus, if she were unable to park her RV in the coastal zone due to the ordinance she would effectively be driven out of Santa Cruz and the coast, and would have to drive miles to get to the ocean every day,” the appeal states. “However, she would be unable to afford that because of prohibitive gas costs — driving her RV is very expensive as it gets just five miles per gallon.”
Crow “feels she is being told, ‘You don't deserve to be on the beach because you are poor,' an idea she sees as biased, prejudiced, and trying ‘to privatize the ocean,'” according to the appeal.
In addition to the overnight parking restriction, the appeal highlights concerns with ordinance language banning oversized vehicles from parking at any time of the day within 100 feet of a crosswalk, intersection, stop sign, traffic
signal, or on any arterial street, buffers that would stretch “five times as long as the 20-foot zones ‘prohibited zones’ pertaining to the parking of other vehicles near the same street features.” The claim also critiques the ordinance’s vague language on specifics criminalizing RV-dwellers who have unsafe or untidy areas surrounding their vehicles.
Neighboring city leaders
in Capitola are eying Santa Cruz’s progress in enacting the parking ban. The Capitola City Council recently discussed taking a look at the potential for crafting a similar law.
The two ordinance appeals will go before the city Planning Commission, as early as March 17 or potentially pushed back to April 7, as needed, Haschert told the Sentinel.