From: stephanie wansek
To: Council, City
Cc: Clerk, City; City Mgr
Subject: September 14 Consent Calendar – OSV Parking Permit District Ordinance Date: Thursday, September 10, 2026 11:49:47 AM
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Dear Mayor Veenker and Council Members,
I am writing as a Palo Alto resident regarding the OSV Parking Permit District ordinance scheduled for second reading on the September 14 Consent Calendar. I urge the Council to pull this item from Consent and reconsider the sequence and scope of the ordinance before permanently adding Chapter 10.49 to the Municipal Code.
I support establishing a clear, objective citywide restriction on overnight parking of oversized vehicles on public streets, regardless of zoning. The parking ordinance should regulate the vehicle — its size, location and hours of parking — not the person inside it. Who is living there, why they are there, and what assistance they may need belongs on a separate track.
I understand that some form of permit authority may be necessary to transition Palo Alto’s existing OSV population. My concern is not with creating that limited authority. My concern is permanently codifying a general OSV Parking Permit District framework BEFORE the City has established its long-term citywide parking rule, WITHOUT tying that authority to a defined transition population or providing a sunset.
There are now several regional models worth considering. Menlo Park adopted its current OSV restrictions in March 2025. Cupertino adopted a citywide overnight OSV restriction in September 2025, effective October 2025, with only limited temporary exceptions. Redwood City has had an overnight RV restriction since 2020 and paired it with a temporary transition program that ended in 2023. San Francisco adopted a citywide large-vehicle restriction in 2025 while creating a time-limited transition program for a defined population already living in vehicles in the city.
These newer approaches now have actual operating histories that did not exist when Palo Alto first considered some of them. Redwood City’s restriction has been in place for nearly six years, and the current Menlo Park, Cupertino and San Francisco ordinances have now been in effect for approximately a year or more. I have not been able to identify litigation challenging the current Menlo Park, Cupertino or San Francisco ordinances, and Cupertino’s legal analysis states that Redwood City’s program had not been legally challenged. I believe that experience should now be part of Palo Alto’s assessment of litigation risk.
It is also important to distinguish between the parking rule and the legal issues that can arise in its implementation and enforcement. Several cases Palo Alto has considered involve towing, impoundment, displacement, encampment removal and other homelessness- related enforcement issues rather than simply the existence of an objective vehicle-based parking restriction. That is not a reason to avoid establishing the underlying parking rule; it is a reason to design the transition and enforcement process carefully.
Palo Alto can do both. The City can establish a clear citywide rule while developing a thoughtful, legally sound transition for the existing population. Those implementation questions should follow from the parking policy, not prevent the City from establishing one.
I am also concerned by suggestions that OSV Parking Permit Districts could become a permanent feature of Palo Alto. We cannot keep moving the same problem from one neighborhood or commercial area to another and asking each new area to absorb it. The repeated opposition when specific locations are proposed should tell us something:
permanent public-street OSV habitation districts are unlikely to be broadly accepted anywhere in the city.
If permit districts are intended as a temporary transition tool, the Municipal Code should reflect that purpose. If instead Palo Alto intends them to become a permanent feature of public-street parking, I believe that is the wrong long-term policy and simply perpetuates the location-by-location conflict.
The City needs to establish the parking rule first. If temporary permit districts are necessary to transition the existing population, authorize them expressly for that purpose, with a defined population, a defined transition period and a sunset.
Without first establishing the parking rule, the City risks remaining stuck indefinitely in the much larger questions surrounding housing and services. The ordinance creates the boundary; the implementation period gives the City time to address assistance, accommodations and individual circumstances on a separate track.
I respectfully ask Council to pull the ordinance from Consent, establish the long-term citywide OSV parking policy first, and structure any permit authority as a defined transition mechanism rather than a permanent substitute for the underlying rule.
Thank you,
Stephanie Wansek
Resident Vantage Palo Alto