Agoura Hills Law : Motor Home Lobby Gears Up to Battle Limits on Parking

As they prepared to update a legal guide to help recreational vehicle owners fight for the right to park their vehicles at home, editors of Trailer Life magazine did not have to look far for fresh material.

They had only to step outside the magazine’s office in Agoura Hills, where a disputed city ordinance prohibits the parking of motor homes on streets between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

The law, which carries a $28 fine for daytime street parking, was enacted 15 months ago to prevent children from darting out behind oversized vehicles into the path of cars and to improve motorists’ visibility on narrow, hilly residential streets.

Since then, motor home owners been forced into a daily ritual of moving their coaches in and out of their small driveways to keep from being ticketed by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

Luckier coach owners have been able to reserve one of the few local storage yard spaces available for motor home parking. But they complain that they are often cited when they bring their vehicles home for maintenance or to be packed for outings.

The city’s ordinance exempts motor homes parked for short-term loading or for emergency repairs but owners say deputies sometimes do not stop to find out what the situation is before slapping citations on windshields.

Recreational vehicle owners say it takes up to six hours to prepare their vehicles for the road. The most time-consuming task involves parking the vehicle on a level spot so its refrigerator will start working and become cold enough to store food.

“Even if you have a driveway, you need to park in the street for leveling,” said Pat Andell, an Agoura Hills resident whose 24-foot-long coach is among those that have been ticketed.

“I couldn’t believe it when I got cited. I’d gone in the house for five minutes to get more clothes. The door was open and it should have been clear to the deputy that I was loading it up. Now, I leave a big sign on it saying we will be leaving at a certain time.”

(Sheriff’s deputies, who have a contract with Agoura Hills to handle law enforcement, issued 1,330 parking citations last year, but their year-end report to city officials did not break down how many of those tickets were issued to owners of motor homes.)

Limits Not Unusual

Parking restriction laws on large vehicles are not unusual. Many cities set time limits on street parking and restrict overnight parking of motor homes. Master-planned communities such as Westlake Village also frequently have deed restrictions that limit storage of large vehicles on private property as well, day and night.

Affluent Agoura Hills, where hundreds of upwardly mobile families have invested in expensive vacation coaches, had escaped most of those those rules before its incorporation 26 months ago.

City Councilwoman Vicky Leary, who initiated the parking ordinance after several children were almost hit after running out from behind recreational vehicles on her street, said a special council subcommittee has begun examining the problem. She said the panel hopes to recommend possible changes in the law in April--before this year’s vacation season starts.

“We’re looking at the feasibility of issuing permits for residents to park during the day for leveling their RVs,” she said Thursday. “But I would want them still prohibited from hilly streets and away from intersections where there could be a visibility problem. The police say it might be hard to enforce something like that.”

Councilwoman Fran Pavley said officials are also being lobbied to allow short-term motor home street parking for out-of-town guestsvisiting local residents. City staff members received about a dozen requests for waivers from the ordinance during the recent Christmas season, when many visitors arrived in motor homes.

In the event that the ordinance is changed, officials have already printed up 200 blue parking permits that can be issued to motor home owners.

At their headquarters half a mile away from city hall, Trailer Life magazine officials said they have devoted a full page to the Agoura Hills parking situation in their new parking rights guide. The 56-page handbook will be published in two weeks and distributed to members of the magazine’s 430,000-member Good Sam Club who need help in fighting parking laws in their own communities.

In a recent issue of the international club’s newspaper, Good Sam’s Hi-Way Herald, officials said that their hometown “has one of the most unusual RV parking restriction codes in the country.”

Agoura Hills’ problem is unique because “very few homes in the community have level driveways or accessible backyards” for motor homes, the newspaper said.

Hi-Way Herald editor Gary Curtis said the Good Sam Club promotes safety and compliance with all laws. But, he said, club members are also encouraged to help change unfair parking laws and have won major victories in many cities over recreational vehicle parking.

The landmark court case against restrictive recreational vehicle parking came in 1977, when motor home enthusiasts successfully sued the city of Euclid, Ohio, over the city’s oversized vehicle parking ban.

“My impression of Agoura Hills here is that the city officials are open-minded about this,” Curtis said in an interview. “Nobody wants people living in motor homes on the street for months at a time.”

Jean Doefler, assistant director of the Good Sam Club, said Agoura Hills officials have not solicited the views of Trailer Life magazine experts, who moved to their hilltop headquarters several years before the area incorporated.

Agoura Hills’ parking ordinance “was already an accomplished fact when we heard about it,” she said. “They’ve said no parking in the street and in certain cases, I can’t object. Health and safety considerations are one thing. But prohibiting the parking for aesthetics is another.”