The following is a RAPID RESPONSE Call-to-Action to help our friends and allies in Santa Cruz (CA). Vehicle residents in SC are facing an upcoming vote to establish an ‘Oversized Vehicle Ordinance’ (OVO) that would restrict people from parking larger vehicles near the coast. Please read the below request from Reggie at Santa Cruz Cares and consider sending an email by TOMORROW May 5, and/or sign up to testify on May 11 at the online Coastal Commission Hearing. Please consider sharing your experiences with restrictions on parking your oversized vehicle near coastal lands, in Santa Cruz, and about this law would affect your access to public spaces and natural resources.
My apologies for the repeat emails, we are working to consolidate our email groups to reduce this redundancy. Thank you for your patience, we look forward to speaking with you at our next meeting on May 17th (11-12:30pm PST) – please look for the invite soon!
Graham J. Pruss, PhD
Director and Co-Founder, National Vehicle Residency Collective
———-
Hello National Vehicle Residency Collective!
We in Santa Cruz, CA could use your help in defeating an anti-houseless ordinance known as the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance! The Oversized Vehicle Ordinance is a parking permit program that aims to make it impossible to park (and thus sleep) in your RV, sprinter van, bus, or camper overnight.
This ordinance is going before a state regulator known as the Coastal Commission on May 11th, who will potentially strike down its implementation in the “coastal zone” (An area of land near the CA coastline) if they deem that the law hinders “public access to the coast”. That’s where you come in!
Do you live in an RV, sprinter, or camper van? Have you visited Santa Cruz, CA before? Did you find it difficult to access the coast when you came because of excessive citations or harassment? Would you find it difficult to access the coast if overnight parking throughout the city’s coastline was illegal, and you had to apply for a special permit just to be allowed to park overnight for a maximum of 72 hours without fear of ticketing?
If any of that rings true for you, please consider writing an email with your personal experience to Centra…@coastal.ca.gov, and make the subject line “Reject the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance (Thursday 12b)”. Please send your email in by May 5th at 5pm!
And if you feel particularly called to comment on this issue, please also consider signing up to speak at the Coastal Commission on Thursday, May 11th!
The item is at the end of the agenda, so we won’t know exactly when it may come up for you to speak on it (could be late afternoon or evening), but if you are motivated to speak, go to the coastal commission meeting page (https://www.coastal.ca.gov/meetings/agenda/#/2023/5) and click the big green button “Submit Speaker Request Here”. Once you’ve done that, choose “Thursday”. You will want to sign up as an “interested member of the public” and you will want to “oppose the staff recommendation”.
Thank you all for your advocacy!
Reggie (Santa Cruz Cares)