Richfield a no-RV parking zone?

When Dana Nelson of Richfield bought his used Fleetwood Jamboree last September, he made sure that the recreational vehicle was less than 24 feet long so that he could legally park it in his driveway.

"We wanted a bigger one but I wanted to make sure I was legit," Nelson said last week. "If it was 24 feet, it would have been too close to the street."

Now, Nelson and dozens of other RV owners are threatening legal action because they fear Richfield might try to make it illegal to park their motor homes, snowmobiles and other recreational vehicles in their driveways. If that were to happen, the new Richfield law would be one of the most restrictive in the state.

The battle of wills in Richfield is the latest round in an effort by cities to figure out what to do with RVs, which owners may see as a home away from home but some neighbors view as the blight next door.

In recent years, cities from New Hope to Burnsville and Hugo to Edina have tweaked their RV ordinances, although few have required owners to park their vehicles off site.

"There are a number of these [RV] regulations around," said Tom Grundhoefer, general counsel for the League of Minnesota Cities.

"They can sometimes be controversial when they come up in cities," Grundhoefer said.

Bloomington -- which has one of the strictest RV parking ordinances because of its limits on the size and number of such vehicles allowed -- found a happy medium: RVs can be parked in driveways, but only if the owner can get his or her neighbors to sign a waiver saying that they don't object.

"It's a balancing act," said Sandy Johnson, Bloomington's associate city attorney. "We have many RVs in the city. We don't get a lot of complaints. But we do get a lot of questions."

A work in progress

Although Richfield officials say no decision has been made about changing their RV law, they acknowledge the City Council is talking about possible changes. "The issue was brought up," said Richfield City Manager Steve Devich. "What we said was that we want to look at the entire situation."

The last time Richfield addressed the law was in the 1980s, when the ordinance was tweaked so RVs could park in driveways, alongside homes or in residents' back yards.

Mayor Debbie Goettel said the city has held two open houses this month to talk about the issue. Scores of comments and opinions have already been received from both sides.

"I don't know how many people are talking about this, but it's large enough in a small town like this," she said. "We're looking at everything. Somewhere in the middle is probably where we will end up."

Widespread issue

Richfield RV owners are concerned that the city will go to extremes to address what they say is a minor problem.

Nelson points out that at a January workshop, Public Safety Director Dan Scott told council members that the city receives an average of 12 RV complaints a year.

Nelson believes that the city is on a beautification campaign as a means of addressing the housing foreclosure crisis that is hitting Richfield and cities across the country.

"There are 130 foreclosed properties in the city and they're thinking about beautification," Nelson said. "This has nothing to do with public safety or public welfare."

If that is the case, then whatever law is enacted could be unconstitutional, he said. The Ohio Court of Appeals ruled in the 1977 Euclid vs. Fitzthum case that cities could not base RV parking restrictions on aesthetics alone, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take the case on appeal.

Grundhoefer said cities can get around the issue by demonstrating that there is a public safety or welfare issue involved.

"Aesthetics shouldn't be the sole justification for parking regulations," he said. "Very rarely do you find one that doesn't involve other things."

"While there is no clear dividing line, the case law does seem to indicate that you can't regulate just for aesthetic purposes," Garrison said last week. "If that RV is super-long and the back end is sticking out into the street, there would be a public purpose in regulating that. But it if is a garish color and somebody doesn't like that, then there probably wouldn't be."