The Cheyenne City Council is getting blasted by local residents over its consideration of banning large RVs and other similarly-sized vehicles from parking on city streets, classifying them as a “nuisance.”
The proposed resolution passed on a 7-2 vote on second reading at the council’s meeting Monday. It will get another vote before it can be officially approved and put into effect.
The resolution would not make any changes to parking these vehicles on private property.
RVs, trailers and other large vehicles now can be parked on city streets for any length of time as long as they are within the vicinity of the owner’s home residence, and more than 30 feet from an intersection and 5 feet from a driveway.
What’s The Problem?
The resolution creates a new designation for “oversized vehicle” to include any vehicle except tractors sized more than 25 feet long, 7 feet wide or 8 feet tall. It would not apply to RVs or any other vehicles smaller than that.
The resolution states that these vehicles cannot be parked on any public Cheyenne street, and if they do, they will be considered a “nuisance.” It allows for vehicles being loaded or unloaded from, or winterized or de-winterized, and vehicles operating as a mobile food truck to park on city streets for up to 72 hours.
Council member Richard Johnson, who brought the resolution forward, said the problem with RVs and other large vehicles parking in city neighborhoods has gotten so bad in Cheyenne that some streets would qualify as an “RV lot.”
Council member Tom Seagrave agreed and said the purpose of the resolution is to target large vehicles permanently parked on city streets, mentioning a large boat that’s parked in his neighborhood. He said it’s particularly hard to drive down Cheyenne’s smaller and narrower streets when large vehicles are parked in the road.
Many times they’re parked there as long-term storage.
“How is that fair to all the neighbors and the other people that want to park on a public street?” Seagrave questioned. “It’s not fair, it’s not right.”
Others like council member Ken Esquibel see the problem as a safety issue, expressing concern that large RVs could block emergency vehicles from providing necessary services.
Although he voted for the resolution, council member Jeff White questioned where vehicles would be towed to after violating the ordinance and if there is an availability of staff to effectively enforce it.
Council member Pete Laybourn, who voted against the resolution, said although Cheyenne has had a “real issue” with getting abandoned vehicles off the street and believes private property parked on public streets is eligible for regulation, he said this proposal as lacking clarity about how it would be enforced and is not “ready for prime time.”
He also expressed concern that it could amount to government overreach and negatively impact local businesses that keep work trailers and utility vehicles parked outside their offices or homes.
“This just isn’t ready for prime time, and we should take another look at how the signage and enforcement of existing law and how all of that needs to be brought together,” he said.
Esquibel said he recently performed a survey of 14 Cheyenne streets, where he found eight with RVs parked on them. In seven of those eight instances, he said someone could have parked their RVs on private property.
Public
Many locals feel differently, however, giving the council an earful Monday.
State Rep.-elect Lee Filer, R-Cheyenne, an RV owner, described the ordinance as a “big government overreach.”
“If their vehicle is registered, I don’t see why there’s a need for this at all,” he said. “Now, we have a city that’s turning us into something not everyone wants.”
Resident Gary Everett agreed and said many residents keep their RVs parked on city streets so that they can be better protected and more easily accessed than if parked at a storage unit.
Cheyenne resident Abigail Boudewyns, a small RV owner, spoke in favor of the ordinance, mentioning how driving down her relatively narrow street is very difficult when RVs are parked on both sides of it.
Boudewyns said although she’s wanted an RV ban on city streets for a long time, raising children brought urgency to the issue for her, and now she doesn’t believe any part of the street can be considered private property.
“I think it’s important, and I think there are a lot of parents like me that feel this way,” she said. “I want you to think of the 1-foot-tall people and the 3-foot-tall people like my kids, and get yourself way down low and think about how you can see around these massive RVs because they are the primary user of our sidewalks.”
Compromise Rejected
Others expressed support for a compromise brought up during an earlier discussion that would drop the ban for the summer months, a stipulation that exists in the cities of Casper and Powell. Many RVs pop up around Cheyenne during these months, and in particular around Cheyenne Frontier Days.
This amendment, which would have also delayed the enactment of the resolution by nearly a year to allow for people to move their RVs, was rejected by the council on a 5-4 vote.
“I’m really disappointed that amendment didn’t pass,” White said.
Filer also spoke against the amendment, saying it still doesn’t alleviate the government overreach at play.
“It’s still making people have to go store their RVs and pay to store their RVs, even in certain parts of the year,” Filer said. “People are still going to have to pay for the whole entire year. This amendment doesn’t absolutely nothing.”
Everett agreed, saying the 72-hour limit isn’t long enough.
Johnson’s Baby
Johnson shared the story of a Honda Civic driving down a relatively wide street in Cheyenne.
He said the driver hit his girlfriend’s vehicle when turning onto a road because of a parked RV blocking its view. Johnson said his girlfriend may have been able to avoid this accident if another RV hadn’t been parked on the other side of the road.
While his girlfriend suffered about $4,000 of damage to her vehicle, Johnson said the owners of the RV were not issued a ticket.
“This is brought up a lot, that’s why I brought it forward,” he said of the resolution. “These are instances that are not reported.”
In 2016, Johnson, who lost his reelection bid this fall, successfully passed a resolution to prohibit for-sale vehicles parked on city streets.
“I saw an RV there that was for sale for over four years,” he said. “The for-sale sign was actually bleached by the sun.”
Johnson also said some people are purposely parking their vehicles in close proximity to their trash cans so that city garbage trucks will hit them, resulting in a cash payout for the damage.
The ban will be brought up again at the council’s Dec. 4 meeting and voted on for a final time at their meeting Dec. 9.
“It’s by no means a done deal,” council member Michelle Aldrich said.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
