Scott Swanson
Sweet Home Public Safety Committee members spent an hour Tuesday, May 27, trying to figure out a solution to a Sweet Home’s couple’s desire to spend limited time parked on their own property while visiting family between extended trips out of town.
Brady Pickle and his wife, Jodi, have lived at 3805 Long St. for 30 years. He is a retired logger, and she is a retired bookkeeper. They plan to travel as much as they can, health permitting, but they want to stay in their RV on their property when visiting family members who now live in their home.
The city Planning Commission denied the Pickles’ request for a conditional use permit to live in the RV between trips and the City Council upheld the denial April 22, but asked the Public Safety Committee and Planning Commission to review relevant nuisance and zoning ordinances.
Pickle and another interested resident, Sam Lucontro, spoke with committee members, who began by reviewing other local communities’ ordinances regarding RV’s. Also participating in the discussion were City Manager Craig Martin, Police Chief Jeff Lynn, City Attorney Robert Snyder and Planning Commissioner Eva Jurney.
The discussion ranged over the time limits and definitions in various other cities’ ordinances compared to Sweet Home’s current regulations pertaining to RVs. The committee reviewed a draft ordinance put together by City Attorney Robert Snyder that would allow people to apply for 15-day permits, which could be renewed once, to park RV’s on property within the city.
The committee, which is composed of City Councilors Greg Mahler, Dave Trask and Bruce Hobbs, and staff members, along with Pickle and Lucontro, spent most of the meeting discussing the pros and cons of different time limits and how city staff would be able to enforce whatever limits are eventually agreed upon by the City Council, which will make the final decision.
Martin said he gets complaints from residents who are concerned about the impact the presence of an inhabited RV will have on property values.
“Even with a $500,000 motor coach, I’ve had people complain,” he said.
One problem, he said, is people who swap “multiple RVs” on a single property to avoid code violations.
Pickle said it’s “kind of spooky” to see an RV that, he said, “you can tell hasn’t been moved for months and months. They’re not hooked up to the sewer but you know they’re using the sewer.”
Trask said he believes 45 days is a fair limit for “compassion.”
“If we start making exceptions, we start opening the door for many, many, many things to come.”
Mahler noted that if they modify the rules, councilors will need to consider how the city is going to enforce them.
Hobbs and others said another problem is the length of time it takes to get action following a complaint. Hobbs said he lived on a section of Nandina Street where a neighbor’s son pulled a trailer into a driveway and proceeded to use it as a meth lab.
He noted that permitting people to stay too long in a single location would make it harder to deal with such situations.
Lynn said that one way to address that might be to shorten the initial permit.
“Documentation starts when our code enforcement officer goes out there,” he said.
Martin said complaints often come after those bringing the situation to the city’s attention are doing so out of frustration.
“Neighbors have put up with it for two weeks, two months, two years. They want it taken care of now. As Jeff says, the abatement process could take 30 days. I know some that took two months.
“That is the challenge when you extend time frames. It can be frustrating to complainants.”
Mahler said that is why he favors a 15-15-15-day progression for permits. But Martin said even that may not be enough to keep complainants happy.
“For some people, if there is really a problem, seven days is really an eternity,” he said.
Pickle said another problem is that complaints are sometimes lodged out of ill will.
“Whoever complains about you, you should have the right to know who it is,” he said, adding that he has only one neighbor “who, I think, is dead” and he suspects that his own situation may have been reported by a former relative.”
Mahler noted that the problem with revealing the sources of complaints is concerns about retaliation.
Pickle said he’s been told that he could file with the city as a hardship case “and the problem would be taken care of.”
“That’s not the point,” he said. “What about the rest of the community? We’ve got a real problem.”
Martin noted that other communities exclude RVs from hardship zones. He said that any hardship permits need to include clear provisions that will end the permission when the person for whom the hardship was granted is no longer residing on the property.
Mahler stated that he believed the topic needed more discussion and the committee agreed to continue it to its next meeting.
That will be held at a yet-to-be-determined date, after Snyder reworks the draft ordinance to include a 15-15-15 progression and address the concerns mentioned in the meeting