RV Campers who park along Pacific Coast Highway in L.A. County will now have to observe parking hours on both sides of the road.
Photo: Courtesy ABC News
Recreational vehicles may no longer be able to park for weeks or months on end along Pacific Coast Highway in an unincorporated area between Pacific Palisades and Malibu.
At an October 17 Coastal Commission meeting, commissioners approved the posting of signage that would prohibit permanent parking on the public right-of-way between Coastline Drive and Topanga Canyon Boulevard.
Parking would be prohibited on the landward side of PCH between midnight and 2 a.m. and would prohibit parking on the ocean side of PCH between 2 and 4 a.m. daily.
L.A County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl’s District Deputy Stephanie Cohen has been working for the past two years to get parking hours approved by the Commission, which did not want to limit access to the ocean.
Cohen sent an October 18 email to Circling the News to explain the next steps:
1) The ordinance has to be approved by the Board of Supervisors. The County has to adopt a regulation to post signs, which should happen at the October 29 Board meeting.
2) The Department of Public Works must obtain a right-of-entry permit from Caltrans, which is already in the works. Cohen wrote, “We do not anticipate this process holding up the posting of signage.”
3) The signs must be created and made with specific language required by the Coastal Commission.
“Our joint goal is to have signs fabricated and posted by mid-November and we will keep you posted as that moves along,” Cohen wrote. “While we are working with law enforcement on these regulations, I also need folks to understand this will not be an overnight fix. Our goal is never to displace folks who are experiencing homelessness and we will continue to work to get them into proper solutions such as safe parking and shelter before completely removing vehicles.”
This is great news.
How about also prohibiting parking on red flag fire danger days. Issue them a pass to park in the will Rogers’ beach lots instead. It is only a matter of time before one of those campers does something wrong and sets the hillside on fire.
This is a perfect example of the ineptitude of the LA County government. For years I’ve seen this problem of decrepit RV’s parking for long periods along the unincorporated stretch of PCH between Coastline Drive and Topanga Canyon Blvd. The cities of Los Angeles and Malibu have managed this issue and also managed to keep homeless encampments off the beach. LA County has done nothing as raw sewage from these vehicles flows into the ocean. Whatever sympathy we may have for the homeless will quickly evaporate if we continue to see public spaces like this trashed. And the fact that the Coastal Commission has exacerbated the problem is particularly galling. This is the organization that LA Times columnist Steve Lopez documented as being in the pockets of developers.