Durango City Council adopted a fine and fee schedule last month allowing police officers to enforce illegal parking of recreational vehicles, boats and crafts on public streets.
Councilors passed the new schedule and refined definitions of RVs unanimously. The fine schedule lists a $50 fine on a first offense, $100 on a second offense and $250 on a third offense, with further offenses rendering an RV eligible for impoundment.
Officers have discretion to issue citations or warnings, and under the new ordinance, people may park their RVs on the street for 72 hours within a seven-day period before they are eligible to be cited. The ordinance does away with a get-around that previously allowed residents to simply move their RVs to another on-street space to avoid scrutiny.
The ordinance describes RVs as “any vehicle, trailer, or recreational equipment designed or modified to be used primarily for recreational, camping, travel, transportation of recreational gear, or seasonal use that either has its own motor power or can be mounted on or towed by another vehicle.”
Motor homes, campers, trailers designed to carry recreational equipment, boats, snowmobiles and off-highway vehicles including dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles are included in the definition.
Some councilors had light disagreements over whether allowing temporary street storage of RVs for 24 hours or 72 hours was more appropriate, but ultimately agreed to 72 hours.
Councilor Kip Koso said it appears older, more densely populated neighborhoods appear to have more issues with streetside RV parking than neighborhoods that are roomier, and he prefers a 24-hour parking limit because it gives officers more flexibility when enforcing parking laws.
“We’ve had some near misses on large RVs and kids playing in streets,” he said, asking if officers have the ability to address an illegally parked RV that is causing safety concerns in under 72 hours.
City Attorney Mark Morgan said a separate city ordinance allows officers to act immediately when a vehicle is parked unsafely.
Mayor Dave Woodruff said he favors allowing temporary RV street parking for up to 72 hours within a seven-day period because 24 hours just isn’t a lot of time for busy weekend recreators to unpack and store their vehicles.
For Woodruff, it was a question of town character – Durango is a destination for many people who enjoy the outdoors, and he worried being too harsh with RV parking standards could impact a feature of the city residents value.
“Twenty-four hours of parking your RV or boat or craft over a week is too short of a time frame to allow someone to get their vehicle from storage, park it on a Thursday, pack it, get ready, leave after school or after work on Friday, recreate on the weekend, get back on Sunday to unpack, leave it Sunday night and then take it back to wherever they’re going … on Monday,” he said. “To me, it seems more feasible to make the allowance for a 72-hour window ‒ a three-day window in a seven-day period ‒ for families and folks that want to enjoy the outdoors to hit the lake or river.”
He said he was also concerned about residents weaponizing a 24-hour restriction in petty disputes against their neighbors.
City Manager José Madrigal said the city largely enforces illegal RV camping on a complaint basis, meaning officers don’t regularly patrol the streets looking to issue citations for RV camping but will respond to complaints or if they encounter violations.
Councilor Shirley Gonzales said complaint-based enforcement give her pause.
“If there’s an ordinance on the books, we’re going to enforce it, but we’re not out there patrolling the streets 24/7 looking for these parking violations,” Madrigal said.
Morgan said the more closely related to public safety an ordinance is, the less complaint based enforcement becomes.
“If there’s an ordinance out there that needs to be enforced because it’s putting the public at risk, we’re not waiting for a complaint to do it, we’ll go and enforce that,” he said.
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