WHIDBEY NEWS-TIMES: Island County may temporarily allow people to legally live in RVs (AUDIO)

Kira Erickson reports from the Island County Commissioners work session on Wed., Jul. 13, 2022.

During a discussion last week, Commissioner Melanie Bacon proposed enacting a moratorium on the county’s current restrictions on using RVs as a place to live. In particular, she pondered if regulations could be loosened for those wanting to live in an RV on private property with the owner’s permission.

They Said It

Previously, Commissioner Jill Johnson has questioned planning officials about issuing an emergency declaration, and Commissioner Janet St. Clair has asked them about changing the code in relation to this topic. Planning officials confirmed neither option was viable but did say a moratorium could be done.

“I want a little bit of vigilance in this process, but I do want the flexibility,” St. Clair said.

St. Clair said she herself had a permit to live in a travel trailer on her property while building her home in California.

“I want a process that is transparent and documented and fair to both sides,” she said.

Johnson said that the moratorium could be lifted when county residents have better access to housing. As she also noted, people are already living in travel trailers in RV parks and she wondered why that also couldn’t be done on someone’s 5-acre property.

“In my mind, the purpose of considering a moratorium is to acknowledge that we have a problem right now, that people are doing this anyway and we’re making them code criminals when in all reality we don’t have a better solution for them,” she said.

When asked by the Whidbey News-Times what he thought of the proposed moratorium, Sheriff Rick Felici said he doesn’t see a problem with it as long as the RVs are on private property and not parked on roads.

“What I have a problem with is people abandoning them in the roadway and taking up residence in parks,” he said.