{"id":11227,"date":"2019-03-02T12:30:42","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T20:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=11227"},"modified":"2019-03-02T12:30:47","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T20:30:47","slug":"berkeley-city-council-tells-rvs-to-hit-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2019\/03\/02\/berkeley-city-council-tells-rvs-to-hit-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Berkeley City Council tells RVs to hit the road"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Natalie Orenstein<\/a> March 1, 2019<\/a> (Berkeleyside.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An
The Berkeley City Council on Thursday banned RVs from parking overnight in Berkeley. Photo: Natalie Orenstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Recreational vehicles will have to roll out of town soon, per a citywide ban on overnight parking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Berkeley City Council<\/a> voted Thursday to enforce a prohibition on parking from 2-5 a.m., while developing a permitting system exempting some RVs for two weeks each year. Officials promised a packed room at Thursday\u2019s special meeting that they\u2019re still looking into a location for a trailer park somewhere in the East Bay too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision came after two hours of passionate public comment, with RV occupants telling the council they simply can\u2019t afford any other housing and have nowhere else to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some owners of homes and companies in West Berkeley, where most of the RVs are clustered, applauded the ban, saying health and safety issues have come up around the vehicles, scaring away business.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thursday\u2019s vote concluded discussions that began a year ago, when many RVs had been parked for months along Marina Boulevard<\/a>. The city received safety complaints from marina visitors and the neighboring DoubleTree Hotel, and eventually kicked the vehicles out, building parking spaces for smaller cars<\/a> in their stead. The RV inhabitants, several of whom have formed a group called Berkeley Friends on Wheels<\/a>, relocated to the nearby former Hs Lordships parking lot<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the city gave them a week\u2019s notice there too \u2014 citing a provision of the state land grant requiring Berkeley to use the marina for waterfront-related purposes only \u2014 at least a couple dozen ended up around Eighth and Harrison streets, lining a few blocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berkeley police have counted around 200 RVs throughout the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile I\u2019m very sympathetic to the challenges people are facing, we have to question at some point, how much more can we as a city accommodate?\u201d said Mayor Jesse Arregu\u00edn at the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September, the council directed city staff to look into options for managing RV parking. Staff came back with two proposals Thursday: a ban on parking from 2-5 a.m.<\/a> and an online 14-day permitting system. The overnight parking ban already applies to \u201ccommercial vehicles,\u201d and the definition has already been interpreted to apply to RVs in the past, but the amendment makes it explicit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both options, staff said, would be paired with new resources and services offered to RV dwellers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Berkeley police and staff present options for managing RV parking to the City Council on Thursday, Feb. 28. Photo: Natalie Orenstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Berkeley Police Lt. Randy Files said his research turned up no cities with model approaches to similar issues. Most surrounding towns have bans on longterm RV parking, but few actively enforce them or act more aggressively, he said.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one wants to be the one getting attention [for] being the ones driving people away,\u201d Files said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City Council ended up passing an all-of-the-above option, with the overnight ban and the permit, and directed staff to seek out private lots like churches that might allow RVs to park for months at a time, so long as the owners are engaged in city homelessness services and trying to get housed \u2014 a suggestion made by Councilwoman Sophie Hahn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rashi Kesarwani, whose district includes the largest cluster of RVs, said she\u2019s talked with their inhabitants \u2014 including families with kids in Berkeley schools \u2014 as well as concerned businesses, and hears daily from frustrated neighbors. She said she wants \u201ceveryone in our community to have a safe place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt really does bother me that cities like Berkeley are put in this impossible position of having to balance the needs\u201d of all the groups on its own, she said. But \u201cwe need to manage the immediate situation in West Berkeley.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The item passed 6-3, with council members Cheryl Davila, Kate Harrison and Rigel Robinson voting against it. Davila had previously tried to refer the issue back to a council policy committee, but didn\u2019t get enough votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robinson said \u201cI can\u2019t find in my heart\u201d to kick unhoused people out of town without giving them an alternative.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs little as I may be able to sleep after this, I\u2019ll have the privilege of doing so in a bed,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 14-day permit he called \u201ca vacation, not a safety net.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cY\u2019all put us in the streets of Tesla\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On a rainy morning earlier this week, 20-30 RVs and vans snaked around the corner of Eighth and Harrison streets, near the new Tesla service center and in front of a pottery studio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curtains covered most of the vehicles\u2019 windows, but a couple of people came in and out of their trailers and motor homes throughout the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank Calloway, who\u2019s lived in an RV in Berkeley for almost a year, said that morning that he\u2019d be \u201cout of here\u201d if the council approved the overnight parking ban. He plans to head back home to Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Close-up
Around 20 to 30 RVs and vans were parked along Eighth and Harrison streets earlier this week. Photo: Natalie Orenstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He regrets ever \u201cgetting off at the University exit\u201d when he came out west, but said of his fellow RV dwellers, \u201cthis is my community\u201d now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calloway said the group was content to be out of the way of residential and commercial areas while at the marina, but that complaints were inevitable when they were forced into city neighborhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cY\u2019all put us in the streets of Tesla. We\u2019re playing with people with a lot of money,\u201d he said. At one point Calloway thought the RV cohort should just buy some communal land nearby but, \u201cThis is Berkeley. The dirt\u2019s expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parked next to Calloway, another man, who didn\u2019t want to give his name, said he and his wife have always been resigned to following the rules. Sometimes they\u2019ve moved their RV daily \u2014 and even hourly during a period when the 2-5 a.m. ban was enforced, he said. He has lived in Berkeley for five years and that morning was getting on his bike to go to his audio engineering job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor the most part, most of us do this because we\u2019re trying to save money or make a living,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He doesn\u2019t fault people for being annoyed, but asked to be given a little slack: \u201cWe\u2019re not here to bother anyone. We can bend with them, but not all the way over. I\u2019d like to see us come to some agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Young<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\"A
RV dwellers and supporters address the council. Photos: Natalie Orenstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Numerous speakers \u2014 owners of RVs, and nearby homes and shops alike \u2014 made their pitches to the council Thursday, as the line for public comment stretched around two walls of the meeting room and continued to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott Huffman of Read Investments, which owns 901 Gilman St., the old Pyramid Brewing facility where Tesla now operates<\/a>, said the RVs have thwarted his efforts to attract and satisfy tenants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The businesses that have opened there \u201care being crushed by the fact that they can\u2019t find parking spaces for visitors and employees,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some residents said they have been finding human waste in bags in front of their houses or on the sidewalks since the RVs showed up. The nearest dumping stations for RVs are at least a few towns away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some speakers said the city should just provide sanitation or pump-out facilities instead of banning the vehicles altogether. Others said most RV owners aren\u2019t to blame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t use the [RV] plumbing, so the whole human waste thing is not something I do,\u201d said Michael Smith. The PhD student lives in an RV with his girlfriend, who attends community college, and an elderly man. \u201cI\u2019m the only one who makes enough money to take care of the three of us.\u2026 living in an RV is the situation that works best for us now,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One man told the council it\u2019s not only homeless people who\u2019d be affected by a parking ban. He owns a home in Berkeley and can\u2019t afford to park his RV \u2014 which he uses for travel \u2014 anywhere other than in front of the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original staff proposal would have affected many more people. It suggested expanding the definition of \u201chouse car\u201d to any vehicle someone sleeps in and further restricting those. Nobody on the council advocated for that change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cameras, outhouses part of illegal dumping initiative<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The crowd at Thursday\u2019s meeting had thinned significantly by the time the council took up the next item of the night \u2014 a range of new approaches to handling illegal dumping<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While City Manager Dee Williams-Ridley stressed that recent trash build-up on Berkeley streets is not solely because of increased homelessness, most of her proposals related to encampments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Caltrans and CHP told campers to move their belongings, and cleared out garbage, after numerous people complained about trash build-up near the University Avenue and Frontage Road encampment in January. Photo: Tracey Taylor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The council unanimously \u2014 without Harrison, who left sick mid-meeting \u2014 approved all the city manager\u2019s recommendations for a \u201cclean and livable commons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vote authorizes new lighting and cameras at locations where trash accumulates, new staff to address \u201cdebris and other negative impacts related to encampments,\u201d five new portable bathrooms and new storage lockers near encampments, and a \u201ccitizen awareness campaign.\u201d Staff did not provide a cost for the additional expenditures. Staff said the city will use a big chunk of the $4 million coming in state emergency homelessness funds to cover this work, but will need to come up with more money as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arregu\u00edn also proposed increased fines for illegal dumping and exploring employment opportunities for unhoused people to work on the clean-up. Hahn proposed a temporary waste pump-out solution for RVs while the new policies are getting off the ground. All the suggestions were included in the final vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Submitted by Mike Zint of First They Came for the Homeless)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Natalie Orenstein March 1, 2019 (Berkeleyside.com) Recreational vehicles will have to roll out of town soon, per a citywide ban on overnight parking. The Berkeley City Council voted Thursday to enforce a prohibition on parking from 2-5 a.m., while developing a permitting system exempting some RVs for two weeks each year. Officials… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11227"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11228,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11227\/revisions\/11228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}