Courtesy of Napanews.com

City should make room for RVs
Friday, September 13, 2002

Dear editor,
The issue of RV parking and storage will be coming before the city council at the Sept. 17 meeting. Before that happens, I would like to express my views on the subject.

I have been camping in RVs ever since my parents bought one about 30 years ago. I'm sure everyone will agree that RVs help provide a sense of relaxation and family togetherness that is all too absent in today's society. Every year more people are purchasing RVs, and they're no longer waiting for retirement to buy them. Once purchased, RVs provide an inexpensive means of vacationing, just throw in your clothes and food and go.

I believe that the city has screwed up the whole RV issue over the years. Instead of allowing houses to be built with enough room on the side to park an RV, they have made lot sizes smaller. If a house does have enough clearance on the side to park one, it usually is on the non-garage side, thus making the homeowner pull out landscaping, and pour additional concrete up the front yard into the back allowing the RV a parking space. The neighborhood in which my parents live in is lucky, many of the houses have clearance on the garage side of the house to park RVs.

I think the city council should be proactive on this matter, not reactive. There is a definite need to find a resolution to this issue. Since the city of Napa cannot stop people from buying RVs, they should find a way to let them be able to store them on their property. I agree that some people are not responsible parkers, and often just let the RVs sit out in front of their house, sometimes under an ugly tarp. That is, however, in the minority of RV owners. Most people take care of their RVs in a responsible manner.

The council needs to address key issues: First, the building of storage facilities for trailers, boats and motorhomes. Right now there are no storage facilities for RVs in Napa, even though there are thousands of vehicles around. The problem of costs associated with storing them would probably be high given Napa's land prices. It's also a pain to have to drive to a lot somewhere to move your RV to load, maintain or even wash it.

The better of the two necessary solutions is for the council to direct the Planning Commission to encourage and accept house designs with on-site storage capability. How many times have you seen real estate ads that read, "room for RV parking?" It's pretty rare here in Napa, and having it can increase the selling price of the home. If all single-family houses were designed for today's lifestyle, they would all include ample room for RVs.

If Napa would have been planning for RV storage, both at homes and facilities, instead of reacting to it as a nuisance, there would be no problem, and what is sure to be a heated council meeting could have been avoided.

Arthur L. Morris, Jr.
Napa

Council should respect RV owners
Wednesday, June 26, 2002

Dear editor,

On May 28 I attended the City Council workshop that was concerned with RV parking in residential areas. By the way, the city ordinance defines a recreational vehicle (RV) as a motorhome, fifth wheel, travel trailer, pickup with camper, boat trailer, ATV, waterjet craft, motorcycles, etc.

The ordinance also covers utility trailers. This was supposed to be a study session to discuss the supposed RV parking problem, even though the chief of police stated at the meeting that RV parking problems in the city of Napa were minor ones.

The public was invited to attend and submit oral or written comments to the council. This last statement is a little misleading because of limited notification, and the time the workshop was scheduled. It was at 3:30 p.m., the day after the Memorial Day weekend. Which means few people were notified and fewer still could attend the meeting during working hours. This indicates to me that the City Council was not interested in input from the voters of Napa.

This ordinance is 30-40 years old and does not reflect today's lifestyle. The average age of the population of Napa, and the United States, is getting older, which leaves us with more time to enjoy life by traveling, boating, camping, etc.
To restrict these activities by not allowing recreational vehicles to be kept on the owner's property, and not on public property, i.e., blocking the sidewalk, or parked in the street, should not be a concern of the City Council as long as the RVs are well maintained and possibly covered with an appropriate cover.

The City Council will contend that RVs can be kept at the owner residence if they are parked beyond the 20-foot setback and behind a fence or shrubbery that is tall enough to hide the RV. With the lot sizes that have been approved by the Planning Commission in the past, it is impossible to meet the 20-foot setback or park a unit in the side yard, let alone to try and get it into the backyard.

With the current lot sizes you would have a hard time parking a bicycle in your side yard. The only alternative is to store your recreational vehicle in a storage facility. I have checked on the availability of storage spaces in the Napa area, and have found no spaces available between Vallejo and Vacaville.

But, like the mayor said at the meeting, it is not the concern of the City Council if there is any storage space available in the Napa area or not.

The City Council also talked about the size of vehicles that should be allowed to park in the city of Napa. They were not just talking about RVs. They were specifically referring to the length of some long-bed four-door pickups being too long and pickups/SUVs with large tires being too tall.

They also briefly discussed limiting the number of recreational vehicles to one that would be allowed to be parked on your property. This looks like the next target on their hit list. I fail to see what difference it makes what type of vehicle you park in your own driveway, as long as it does not impede or hinder public property.

You have to wonder what will be next. Maybe the color of the house or that the property owner has the wrong plants in the front yard or they are planted too close to the sidewalk. But whatever it is, you can rest assured that the property owner is going to lose more of his/her rights.

RV owners are tourists, too. Just like the tourists who pump millions of dollars into the local economy. Only we spend, not so much in the city of Napa, but in the outlying communities, i.e., Lake Berryessa.

The City Council should survey the local businesses that support the recreational community and ask them what they think of the idea of driving RVs out of the Napa area.

Maybe what Napa needs is not more restrictive vehicle parking regulation, but a City Council that is willing to work with the RV owners on how to solve the so-called parking problem.

Maybe what we need is not restrictions on vehicle length and height but a City Council that realizes that times, lifestyles and vehicles have changed.

Maybe what Napa needs is a new mayor and City Council that is willing to work with the voters of Napa, not dictate to them.

Dalton Fields
Napa

Boomer wanderlust, airline concerns push RV growth
Wednesday, June 12, 2002
By HOPE YEN
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK -- For years, Lou Holtmann meant to take a vacation with his children and grandchildren, but the scheduling "never worked out." After Sept. 11, he decided it was time, and so he bought five recreational vehicles for road trips this summer.

"We just wanted to stay closer as a family," said Holtmann, 56, of St. Louis. "There's 20 of us all together, so to fly to a particular spot, stay at a hotel and rent cars would cost significantly higher. And certainly, there were major airline delays that we wanted avoid."

Companies report a surge in RV sales and rentals this year, boosted mostly by adventure-seeking baby boomers unwilling to deal with airline hassles and still skittish about traveling abroad

For the first five months of 2002, RV sales have jumped more than 20 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association. The group attributed the rise to lower interest rates and greater interest in domestic road travel after Sept. 11, particularly in the Northeast.

Property rights protect freedom
Monday, September 23, 2002

Dear editor,
These days it seems popular and politically correct to support ever more restrictions on private property rights. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the right to private property is an absolutely essential and fundamental freedom. In fact, the right to private property is the defining characteristic that distinguishes free persons from slaves.

While a slave's time and the product of his labor are owned by someone else, a free person owns his own time and the product of his own labor. That means he is free to donate the product of his labor, or to keep it, or exchange it for the services or property of others. In the most fundamental sense, this is exactly what it means to be free. Any person not free to do these things is a slave. Without the right to exchange labor for private property, ownership of one's own labor would have no real meaning, and therefore freedom would have no meaning.

Forcibly taking our private property is forcibly taking the product of our labor as if we were slaves. Forcibly diminishing our rights to own and control our private property differs only in degree from the wholesale taking of it.
It is no wonder, then, that we bristle when misguided citizen groups and local governments attack our property rights. We accurately sense that our most basic and fundamental freedom is in jeopardy.

There can be no freedom without the right to private property, because freedom and private property are synonymous. Private property rights are the essence and the source of basic personal freedom. People who attack property rights need to be reminded that they are attacking freedom itself, and that attacking freedom itself is no longer acceptable in America.

George Bachich
Napa