City Council
Attachment A: Staff Supplemental Report
to OSV Ad Hoc Status Report
From: City Manager
Report Type: STUDY SESSION
Lead Department: City Manager
Meeting Date: February 23, 2026
TITLE
Status Report from the Oversized Vehicles (OSV) Ad Hoc Committee; CEQA Status – Not a Project.
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the City Council receive and provide feedback on the Oversized Vehicles (OSV) Ad Hoc Committee’s report back regarding follow up information from the OSV Ad Hoc Committee and this supplemental information from staff.
BACKGROUND
In response to growing concerns about the longer-term parking of inhabited oversized vehicles on public streets, the City Council established an Oversized Vehicle (OSV) Ad Hoc Committee (Committee) on October 20, 2025
1 and approved a phased approach to addressing community concerns. The City Council action on October 20, 2025 included approval of the following:
Phase 1:
1. Develop an urgency ordinance to prohibit parking of detached/inoperable vehicles on public streets,
2. Develop an urgency ordinance to prohibit the renting of public parking spaces (“vanlording”),
3. Refine the scope and begin implementation of additional street cleanups and sweeping,
4. Return to Council for approvals of ordinances and contract amendments (e.g., street sweeping) as soon as possible, estimated to require up to four (4) months,
5. Implementation and enforcement of these actions would follow,
1 Council Staff Report, October 20, 2025
https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/api/compilemeetingattachmenthistory/historyattachment/?historyId=3020b 489-edc3-4d4a-b48f-398bc6045634
6. Work with LifeMoves to consider options, such as a buyback or parking program, to accept RV residents quickly at the Homekey site or other housing options,
7. Recruit new safe parking on privately-owned and congregation-based parking lots, excepting any safe parking site that requires undedicating parkland,
8. Create an Ad Hoc Committee to recommend details on the increased enforcement and other issues on implementation on items 1-7 above; evaluation of activities in Phase 2 and report back to Council in 4-months, in furtherance of Council goals including public health and public safety,
9. Approve amendments to the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Appropriation (requires a 2/3 vote) to resource aspects of the phased approach in various funds:
a. General Fund by:
i. Increasing the contractual services appropriation for the City Manager’s Office by $157,000 for resources to support program implementation; ii. Decreasing the Business Tax Housing Affordability Reserve by $157,000; iii. Increasing the contractual services appropriation for the Office of Transportation by $150,000 for engineering services;
iv. Increasing the contractual services appropriation in the Public Works Department by $60,000 for street clean-up services;
v. Increasing the contractual services appropriation in the Police Department by $95,000 for marking and enforcement of vehicles; vi. Decreasing the Budget Stabilization Reserve by $305,000; b. Refuse Fund by:
i. Increasing the contractual services appropriation by $245,000 for new permanent and temporary street cleaning signage; and
ii. Decreasing the Ending Fund Balance by $245,000
As immediate follow up of the City Council direction, on December 8, 2025, the City Council adopted two urgency ordinances prohibiting vanlording and prohibiting detached trailer street parking.
2 The Committee reviewed the outreach materials related to these two ordinances.
Staff has posted signs allowing enforcement of the detached trailers ordinance.
The Committee has met almost weekly since October. The Committee members include Councilmembers Ed Lauing (Chair), Julie Lythcott-Haims, and Keith Reckdahl. The Committee's charge, as bolded in the City Council motion above, includes the following tasks:
• Task 1: Recommend details on increased enforcement
2 Council Staff Report, December 8, 2025
https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/meetings/ItemWithTemplateType?id=9662&meetingTemplateType=2&comp iledMeetingDocumentId=17979
• Task 2: Recommendations on other issues in implementation of the other items in the motion (particularly related to items 6 and 7 in the motion (buyback/storage programs and new safe parking options)
• Evaluating Phase 2 activities and options
• Engagement (not formally adopted by the City Council but highly encouraged) • Reporting back to City Council in four months, in furtherance of City Council goals including public health and safety related to the tasks The Committee has been working collaboratively toward solutions focused on enhancing public health and safety. Since November 2025, the Committee has met with City staff to receive updates on cleaning and enforcement efforts and safe parking expansion efforts. The Committee has also begun to evaluate new policy, assess potential impacts, and options for safe parking and convening regional leaders to work on this as a regional issue. Their efforts aim to provide the City Council with actionable considerations that address immediate concerns and achieve long-term outcomes related to managing OSVs.
ANALYSIS
The Committee received information regarding staff’s implementation of the October 20, 2025 Phase 1 direction from City Council. Some key findings are shared below. In addition to those findings and updates, the Committee has also focused on expanding parking options regarding OSVs. This includes looking into options for (1) parking/storing OSVs while their owners participate in interim housing and (2) storing towed OSVs to expand local tow capacity. Lastly, the Committee began consideration of options for Phase II. More information about each of these topics is shared below and in the Committee’s memo.
Findings Regarding Implementation of October 20, 2025 Phase I:
1. Street Cleaning and Sweeping: as of February 10, 2026, staff has conducted one-time street deep cleaning (which includes debris removal, street cleaning, tree pruning, and catch basin and storm drainpipe line cleaning) on 17 street segments. There are 18 street segments remaining in this effort for the streets identified in the October 20th report. Each street (name and count) is counted twice since the work for opposite sides of the street are scheduled for different dates. In addition to the one-time deep cleaning, staff has also implemented a bi-weekly street sweeping effort on the streets that have received deep cleaning. Both efforts, deep cleaning and street sweeping require all vehicles (passenger vehicles and OSVs) to move from those parking spots or be subject to citation and/or towing. To date, most vehicles have complied with the requirement to relocate during street cleaning and street sweeping. Of note, after the deep cleaning and/or street sweeping occur on any of the street segments, vehicles, including OSVs, have returned to park on those street segments.
2. Enforcement:
a. Towing: In 2024, through a contract towing service, police staff towed 12 OSVs.
In 2025, there were 47 OSVs towed.3 On October 20, 2025, the City Council directed police staff to increase enforcement of existing parking and vehicle registration laws that can result in a vehicle being towed from a public street.
From that City Council meeting to the date of this report, 33 OSVs have been towed. In addition to towing, police staff have been supporting the street cleaning and sweeping efforts with outreach and enforcement. Outreach efforts have been successful for street cleanings scheduled on Saturdays. Of the first nine (9) scheduled cleaning dates, only five (5) vehicles (all non-OSVs) were towed for not moving out of the cleaning areas. For regularly scheduled street sweeping, police conducted additional outreach and distributed flyers advising of the routine cleaning schedule. To date, nine (9) passenger vehicles and three (3) OSVs have been towed for failing to move from the scheduled sweeping areas. In 2025, the Police Department paid $53,285 to tow OSVs. In 2026, the Police Department has only been billed and paid a portion of the costs for 2026 tows- to-date. The current paid amount of $5,000 this calendar year will increase after the City is fully billed/invoiced related to the tows-to-date. More information about this process is included as a footnote below.4
b. Scheduled Sweeping Outreach: For the cleanings, Public Works posts “No Parking” signs on A-frames and prepares outreach flyers two weeks prior to scheduled cleanings. The Police Department also engages in outreach to the individuals on street cleaning/sweeping streets. On the date of the scheduled cleanings, after the deep cleaning is completed, Public Works updates the signs to “No Parking for bi-monthly street sweeping” signs.
Transportation staff conducted field surveys of all 18 affected streets, mapped and defined permanent signage locations, designed signage in accordance with regulations, and began work order development for permanent signage (including new poles) related to street sweeping and detached vehicles for
3 From January 1, 2025, to October 15, 2025, police staff towed 25 OSVs and from October 16, 2025, to December 31, 2025, police staff towed 22 vehicles for a total of 47 OSVs towed in 2025. 4 Towing services are paid in one of two ways. In order for a legal owner to retrieve their towed vehicle, the owner must pay for all towing related fees to include the tow fee and storage fees. If a vehicle is truly abandoned or the legal owner does not retrieve their vehicle for various reasons, the tow company will place a lien on the vehicle and then sell or scrap the vehicle if the vehicle has no value. The Police Department is invoiced for all unpaid towing related fees once a vehicle is sold (minus the tow sales revenue) or scrapped. This process can take anywhere from 30-60 days and is the reason why the Department has additional unpaid invoices.
review by Public Works field staff.
3. Outreach (in general and related to enforcement): The Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) conducted 349 interactions between clients and case managers, including 338 documented outreach interactions through street- and site-based engagement. Each interaction focused on building rapport, addressing barriers to services, and connecting individuals to ongoing case management. All activities were tracked through HMIS activity logs and outreach contact forms. In addition to direct outreach, staff engaged with community members and service providers to share information and problem- solve complex situations. Multiple service providers shared the observation that enforcement actions undermine trust and reduce individuals’ willingness to engage with City programs. This concern aligns with outreach staff observations and has implications for effective service connection. Service providers already face lack of trust due to the limited bed availability for those seeking shelter (as of now the average wait time for an individual adult is four (4) weeks for a shelter bed).
4. Safe Parking Lots Recruitment
a. Congregational – Councilmember Lythcott-Haims spoke with providers and faith leaders who expressed that they are already doing their part by providing safe parking on their own lots and that they want to see other sectors of the community to step up.
b. Private – all 3 Committee members talked directly with various property owners regarding possible viable lots; owners shared concerns about risk and liability, and thus there have been no takers to-date for safe parking. c. Public – no viable City lots are available currently for safe parking; staff is in discussion with Caltrans about a potential site; the Ad Hoc is also encouraging a regional discussion on topic. More information on the regional convening concept is included in Attachment B following this staff report.
Exploration of Phase II Concepts
1. OSV Permit Pilot – The OSV Ad Hoc Committee drafted, for discussion, an overview of a possible permit program and that is included in their Committee memo to City Council.
2. Storage / buyback – Research is underway on RV storage and/or buyback and will be provided to the Committee once completed.
City Council Input Requested
The Committee is seeking City Council feedback on the OSV Permit Pilot program concept described in the Committee‘s memo to City Council which also includes information on other implementation progress. The Committee recognizes the difficulty with finding safe parking available space and would like to request City Council feedback on interest to consider adding back the consideration of pursuing the process for the undedication of parkland at least on a
temporary basis near Geng Road, as an option to expand the existing safe parking program there. This was previously taken from consideration at the Policy and Services Committee August 25, 2025 meeting and City Council informal confirmation of that Policy and Services Committee recommendation.
FISCAL/RESOURCE IMPACT
Since October 20, a variety of financial and staff resources have been deployed in this effort, as shown in the table below. Phase 1 efforts to date are within the budget that City Council authorized for this work.
Table 1: RESOURCES EXPENDED OCT 20 – FEB 7 RELATING TO OSV WORK Description Resources and Staff Time
Outreach/case management (contract with LifeMoves) Contract services equivalent to 1.75 FTE Street cleaning (Saturdays) (labor only) $12,384
Including 153 overtime hours
Street sweeping (labor only) $0
Already included in sweeping contract
Storm drain cleaning (Saturdays) (labor only) $14,389
Including 136 overtime hours
Tree pruning (Saturdays) (labor only) $5,291
Including 72 overtime hours
Police/enforcement & outreach 1.60 FTE
There is also 40 CSO overtime hours
valued at $3,035
Towing (all OSVs street cleaning & sweeping/detached
trailer) (contract, not staff/labor)
$58,285 (contract costs)
Temp sign creation/placement (includes staff +
materials/production)
$75,136
Including 116 overtime hours
Sign engineering/planning/design $12,500
Including Hourly work.
There is also 0.5 FTE devoted to this5
Administration, project management, research,
engagement
$17,000
And 1.0 FTE devoted to this
Additional staff and funding resources will be needed to pursue the Phase 2 work and any program that the City Council is interested in pursuing. Staff will further refine cost estimates after further City Council clarity on interests for next steps.
5 This resource is an existing staff member who has been reassigned to work on this priority at the expense of progressing other projects and priorities. The cost for this time spent is approximately $32,000.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
The Committee and staff organized a Community Open House6 to share information with the public about the materials that went to City Council Committee and full City Council in August and October. The open house had about 80 attendees and had stations focused on the following:
• Enforcement
• Parking management: curb painting, time restrictions, signage etc. • Cleaning and sweeping program
• Sheltered housing
• Parking and storage
• Phase 2 activities
Staff collected feedback shared by the community at the open house and summarized it for the Ad Hoc Committee.
In addition to the feedback received at the open house, staff continue to monitor and respond to correspondence submitted to the City Council on this topic. Staff are also actively engaging with the local service provider network to share information, answer questions, and gather insights regarding what providers are hearing directly from their clients. This ongoing outreach helps ensure that staff remain informed of community concerns, service impacts, and emerging themes, and allows for responsive coordination as the project moves forward.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
This is a study session only and no action is planned. Any subsequent projects as defined by CEQA will undergo review at the appropriate time.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment B: Regional Convening Overview
APPROVED BY:
Ed Shikada, City Manager
6 Information on OSV Open House, January 28, 2026: https://www.paloalto.gov/Events -Directory/City- Manager/Oversized-Vehicles-Community-Open-House