ROSEVILLE, Calif. — The Roseville City Council unanimously passed a motion to approve the first reading of an ordinance to amend part of the Roseville Municipal Code for camping on private property.
The ordinance clarifies camping to include tents, huts, vehicles, motorhomes, travel trailers and other temporary shelters. It would also include time limits on camping to no more than 72 hours and no more than three times a year. The campers also must maintain sanitary conditions and properly dispose of water and waste.
Unauthorized camping on private property is still prohibited. People can camp on private property if it's their land, they're camping with the owner or they have the written permission of the landowner.
"It's not to prohibit camping, it's not that we don't want people to camp, it is to make sure camping is done in a safe way that preserves the quality of life that we have here in Roseville. That preserves the aesthetic value of our neighborhoods and the quiet enjoyment of other people's homes because that's one of the other property rights we have to consider also, is people have quiet enjoyment of their property. If your neighbor is allowing people to camp on their property who are being loud, who are disposing of waste, who are causing other issues, that's something we need to address as well," Deputy City Attorney Travis Cochran said at the meeting.
According to Roseville Police Captain Doug Blake, there's been an increase in issues relating to camping on private property. He said during Wednesday's city council meeting the main contributor is people creating encampments on private property.
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Several photos of camping were shown during the city council meeting including camping on undeveloped private property, camping in vehicles and a photo showing an extension cord stretching from a tent to a home.
"In every case, we go out, we work with the property owner. We try to mitigate and then we warn and then we work through this process until citation ever gets to be a consideration on the table," Blake said.
Multiple city council members brought up issues of property rights and didn't want to limit or restrict people who, for example, were camping in their backyards or staying in a trailer or RV on a family member's property.
"This is a complaint-driven process, we're not proactively going out there looking for Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts camping in their backyard. We're looking for those long-term, public health hazard-related issues and based on a complaint, enforcement isn't the very first step, it's usually working with the property owner, working through abatement procedures and then enforcement is much further down the line in a process," Blake said at the meeting.
Cochran said they would work with those property owners to try to figure something out.
"If somebody is camping there and there is not an issue, we're not going to go actively look that person out, we're not going to enforce against them. And if somebody does complain, like a neighbor, and we go out there and we inspect and we'll be like 'look this is a really reasonable use' — one of the things we're going to actively try to do is try to mediate that situation," Cochran said.
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