Goleta’s Ordinance Review Standing Committee is recommending that the city establish “no parking any time” zones for all large vehicles on Phelps Road and Pacific Oaks Road in response to residents complaining about RVs parking there overnight.
City staff said during a meeting Tuesday that there have been a number of complaints on the issue during the past year, with the city having received more than 30 requests for service and more than 100 emails since August 2023 about oversized vehicles parking on Pacific Oaks and Phelps roads.
Other than limiting the availability of parking for standard cars in the residential areas near Girsh Park, residents also have complained about nuisances caused by RVs.
“The complaints of residents have described that the RVs create nuisances to the community in the form of loud noise, significant trash production, exhaust from idling engines, blocking of views, public sex or nudity observed by nearby residents, and reduced parking availability for standard vehicles in a residentially zoned area,” the meeting’s agenda stated.
Some residents also commented that the RVs could bring safety concerns, with young children using Girsh Park, especially for sports events.
“This issue has been frustrating for many, many years,” public commenter Steve Kirkman said. “I did a count Friday night at 8 p.m. There were 16 cars, and I did one last night; there were 18 vehicles that were parked in those areas that we’re talking about. … Most of those appeared to be people that were sleeping in them.”
Kirkman added that, while the RVs are a significant nuisance, a “vast majority of the trash, public lude conduct, bottles of urine, buckets of human waste” come from the cars, not the RVs.
Other community members said that “reasonable use” parking in those areas needs to be maintained.
“It’s really the overnight hours that lead to the problems,” public commenter Adam Smith said. “[Phelps Road] is used for a lot of very reasonable uses in parking. There are large events, there are sporting events at Girsh Park all the time, so it gets heavy use for that, Ellwood Beach and bluffs access … I think it’s important to maintain the reasonable use.”
The City of Goleta already restricts oversized vehicles from parking on any public street during the day on weekdays, but the recommendations are meant to clarify and reiterate the restrictions.
For those restrictions, the city defines large or oversized vehicles as any vehicle, or a combination of connected vehicles or trailers, that exceeds 25 feet in length, 80 inches in width or 82 inches in height.
“I don’t think we’re going to craft a perfect solution today,” Councilman James Kyriaco said. “We’re either going to inconvenience some people that were relying on this for storage of their extra vehicle because they couldn’t park it at Pacific Palms or somewhere else nearby, or the neighborhood is going to continue to be inconvenienced and — depending upon perspective — perhaps feel unsafe.”
The recommendation that the committee made — which will go to the rest of the Goleta City Council at a later date — is to implement “no parking any time” zones for all oversized vehicles on Pacific Oaks Road and on Phelps Road between Pacific Oaks Road and Cannon Green Drive.
“We recognize there is an issue, we recognize there is a problem,” Councilman Stuart Kasdin said. “This is not the place where these vehicles can be parked on a permanent basis, using this as a homestead.”
Neighborhood Services Director Jaime Valdez also reminded community members that it is a parking-related issue, and if residents observe illegal behavior not related to parking by those in RVs or cars, they are “welcomed and encouraged to contact law enforcement.”
“We don’t want to equate one thing with the other,” Valdez said. “If there’s an illegal activity going on that can be enforced that’s separate and distinct from the parking, we just want to make that distinction clear.”