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For years, Sylvia Garcia Cruz and her family have lived in a recreational vehicle on Terra Bella Avenue, one of roughly three dozen streets in Mountain View that does not prohibit the parking of RVs and trailers. Twice a week, Garcia Cruz pays someone to move her RV to a different spot on the street in order to follow the city’s 72-hour parking rule.
While moving is cumbersome – it takes about four hours and requires coordination with other vehicles – Garcia Cruz does not have much choice if she doesn’t want to get slapped with a ticket or towed by the city. It also can be difficult finding available space, especially if there are a lot of people seeking parking spots.
“Sometimes we talk it out,” she said in Spanish. “Sometimes we just park somewhere else.”
In the past year, there has been an increase in the number of oversized vehicles on Mountain View’s streets, according to a June city staff report posted on Mountain View’s public records portal. The uptick has occurred amid a persistent regional housing shortage and homelessness crisis, despite the city’s efforts to invest in affordable housing projects and safe parking lots for vehicle residents.
In August 2025, the city counted 306 inhabited vehicles on its streets. Seven months later, that figure rose to 438, the report said. Of those, the vast majority – 402 – were RVs and trailers, with most parked in commercial and industrial parts of the city.
The report attributed the increase to a handful of factors, including the removal of street parking on El Camino Real to make way for bicycle lanes and the implementation of more restrictive policies in neighboring cities. According to city staff, efforts to curb RV and trailer parking in Palo Alto are a “contributing factor” to the increase in Mountain View.
“From anecdotal information, we cannot say that the people currently using oversized vehicles as housing in Mountain View are primarily displaced Mountain View residents,” the report said. “Rather, we are increasingly hearing that people are relocating to Mountain View from other areas.”
Mountain View’s oversized vehicle ban
In 2020, Mountain View voters approved a measure banning RVs and trailers from parking on “narrow streets,” a definition that covers most of the city’s roadways. The previous year, the City Council passed a separate ordinance prohibiting large vehicles from parking on streets with bike lanes.
In 2021, a group of Mountain View residents filed a class action lawsuit challenging the ban, arguing it violated the constitutional rights of people living in vehicles. A year later, the city settled the lawsuit, agreeing to restrictions on how it implemented the narrow streets and bike lane ordinances.
The settlement, which took full effect at the end of February 2023, requires Mountain View to maintain at least 3 miles of streets with parking capacity on both sides for oversized vehicles. Currently, Mountain View exceeds the 3-mile requirement. A city map shows that the parking adds up to 8.7 miles, although not all of it is “necessarily viewed as conducive to oversized vehicles,” according to the June report.
While the settlement ensured some street parking for oversized vehicles, it only lasts four years – and the expiration date is quickly approaching. As of Feb. 28, 2027, Mountain View will no longer be subject to the settlement’s requirements, including maintaining 3 miles of available parking and providing a map showing parking restrictions throughout the city.
That means Mountain View could crack down on oversized vehicles by adopting additional regulations beyond the narrow streets and bike lane ordinances – if the City Council chooses to pursue that path. Between now and February, there will be a significant turnover on the council with three new members elected to the dais in November.
While it isn’t known what direction the council will take, city staff are already thinking about how to inform vehicle residents about possible changes that could apply early next year.
“We just have to be prepared for the messaging, the noticing, some sort of transition plan so no one is caught off guard,” City Manager Kimbra McCarthy said at a June 23 council meeting. “Especially for those that are the most vulnerable.”
Community complaints about RVs
The proliferation of RVs in Mountain View has not gone unnoticed by local businesses and property owners. In the past 18 months, city officials have received roughly two dozen letters expressing concern about the number of oversized vehicles parked on streets – with all of them urging the city to do something about it. The correspondences were included in the June report.
Greg Welsh, chief operating officer of Alembic, a medical device incubator on National Avenue, wrote to the city in January, describing instances of alcohol and drug use on sidewalks, “biohazard waste” left on curbs, sewage being dumped into storm drains, trespassing on company premises and RVs parked in the same location for weeks.
“I am trying to run a professional and more important safe business for my employees,” Welsh wrote. “My employees, especially those working after dark, have raised serious concerns with their safety.”
Peter Katz, CEO and president of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, raised similar concerns on behalf of the self-driving car company Nuro, which is headquartered on Terra Bella Avenue.
“[They] wanted us to know that the issues with the unhoused population and the overwhelming number of vans on their street is getting worse and untenable,” Katz wrote in May. “Public defecation, needle use, gas canisters are more prevalent.”
The Chamber received similar comments from Intuit and Google, Katz added.
Several letters focused on traffic and pedestrian safety. They described driveway sight lines obstructed by RVs and a lack of street parking for employees and visitors.
“The campers have completely taken over the area and there isn’t any parking for my employees,” wrote Mac McConnell, owner of The Midwife and the Baker on Independence Avenue. “My morning shift starts at 4 a.m. and a few women have mentioned feeling uncomfortable parking so far away and having to walk past dilapidated campers.”
Property owners also reported that the RVs parked near their buildings made it difficult to attract and retain tenants.
BXP, which owns a large office park on Bernardo Avenue and Ravendale Drive, threatened in May to sue Mountain View. The company argued that it deserved compensation from the city because it “has suffered peculiar, direct, and substantial impacts and ongoing financial losses at the city’s hands.”
In the June report, city staff provided an overview of vacancy rates in areas heavily populated by oversized vehicles. The areas that had the highest vacancy rates were Terra Bella Avenue (28.5%), Bernardo Avenue/Ravendale Drive (34.2%) and Pear Avenue (53.3%), according to the report.
However, the city did not directly link the vacancy rates, or pending number of property tax appeals, to the presence of RVs and trailers.
“It is not possible to verify, quantify or predict such economic impacts, nor determine the extent to which oversized vehicle parking may be contributing to them,” the report said.
A proposal for bike lanes
On a late summer afternoon, dozens of RVs and trailers sat nearly bumper-to-bumper on Marine Way, a street just north of U.S. Highway 101 that’s surrounded by Google and Intuit office buildings.
One of the RVs belonged to Mountain View resident Abraham Espinoza. For years, Espinoza and his family stayed at a safe parking lot near Shoreline Amphitheater. But they were forced to leave after plans to find housing did not work out, he said.
Approximately 30% of participants in Mountain View’s safe parking lot program move into transitional or permanent housing as the next step, according to the city’s website. However, that data was mostly collected from participants living in passenger cars.
Espinoza chose to park on Marine Way because it felt like a safe setting, he said. Google and Intuit security guards are stationed nearby and there are a lot of lights, he told the Voice. Still, Espinoza worries about what will happen if the city clamps down on street parking. He is his family’s only income-earner and does not know where else they could afford to live.
“I try not to think about what will happen next,” he said.
Espinoza’s concern that he could be forced to leave Marine Way is not without basis. Last year, Intuit met with city officials to discuss the possibility of adding bike lanes on streets near its campus, which would effectively push out the RVs. Intuit offered to spearhead and pay for the project, according to the June report.
The streets identified for bike lanes were Marine Way, Casey Avenue, Coast Avenue and Garcia Avenue — all but one of which currently allow for oversized vehicle parking.
In July, Intuit contributed $500,000 to Mountain View’s Affordable Housing Fund, the first corporate donor to do so.
Meanwhile, other businesses have also expressed an interest in the Intuit bike lane project, the report said. That includes Wisk Aero, an autonomous air taxi company. The company asked the city to add bike lanes on Broderick Way, another street that currently has parking for oversized vehicles.
Last year, Wisk contacted the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development with complaints that RVs were allegedly parking in the company lot. A state representative sent a letter to the city relaying the concerns. The letter claimed that RVs had “dissuaded potential hires” and that Wisk was “looking to lessen their Mountain View footprint and expand more in Fremont as a result.”
City staff intend to bring plans for the Intuit bike lanes to the council for a vote in December, according to the June report. If approved, construction would begin early next year, coinciding with the expiration of the lawsuit settlement.
This is not the first time that property owners and businesses have asked the city to put in bike lanes on streets that currently accommodate RVs. A year ago, the city posted a survey to gather public input about adding bike lanes on Terra Bella Avenue. However, the City Council shelved the plan in April to focus on projects that are considered higher priorities.
At the time, Council member Lucas Ramirez voiced concern that the bike lanes were a “pretext for getting rid of the RVs.”
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A legal settlement protects RV residents in Mountain View – it's expiring soonSeptember 22, 2026 1:48 pm
So Lucas Ramirez created an RV destination? That’s what the data is showing us.
I thought you were Lucas Ramirez.
No. For one I am a female.
We have an additional problem on Latham between Showers Drive and Ortega Avenue. Pickup and larger trucks with construction equipment park in this block during the afternoon and overnight. These vehicles and RVs also park along Ortega Avenue, especially at the corner of Ortega and El Camino. They block sight lines for the many cars entering and exiting three large apartment and condo buildings on Latham. They interfere with bike and pedestrian traffic from the bus depot on Showers, Walmart, Target, etc., and the surrounding neighborhoods. I have repeatedly called the police about vehicles blocking Latham. They do respond, but the same vehicles show up again the next day. What is the city council doing about this public safety issue? Nothing.
You should be asking public works to paint a longer red curb for visibility. They may consider it.
Lucas, in his 8 years on the council doesn’t seem to have made a dent in improving the lives of RVers. Instead we keep getting more and fewer are moving into housing. Maybe he should have gone to Sierra Club.
Lucas did go to Sierra Club. YIMBYS are spreading their wings. More RV’s coming to town and no where to park. Wait until the new developments get built and the developers are not going to be providing parking for their buildings. Read it and weep. Be sure you know who you’re voting for in this next city council election. Robert Cox has my vote.
Another interesting anecdote; It takes her four hours to move her MOBILE home? And her car?
I thought the whole point of a mobile home was that,it’s easily mobile. It’s not like she’s hooked up to electricity.
The Truck drivers live far away and find it cheaper to park the truck near the location and drive a small car home. Mobile home sometimes are not mobile when they park for weeks and need to be towed to a new location. The mobile homes are in the Sunnyvale area now too but I think Mtn View has more industrial areas they can park at since street parking is hard to find in any town now.