Sausalito tightens decades-old vehicle habitation ban

Sausalito is updating and tightening its ban on people living in motor vehicles.

The City Council voted 3-2 on Tuesday to revise sections of a 1969 law barring people from living and cooking in their vehicles.

The revisions, approved on a first reading, remove a section of the law that prohibits parking for more than eight hours on city streets.

That provision clashed with state law, City Attorney Sergio Rudin said. Instead, the city’s current 72-hour parking ban will remain.

The revisions also expand the list of activities that constitute using a vehicle “as a place of human habitation” or for “preparing or cooking” food, a staff report said. That list is in response to a 2014 federal court decision that overturned Los Angeles’ habitation ban, Rudin said.

The city’s new list includes “more than one of the following activities,” a staff report said. “Possessing inside or on a vehicle items that are not associated with ordinary vehicle use, such as a sleeping bag, bedroll, blanket, sheet, pillow, kitchen utensils, cookware, or cooking equipment, or obscuring some or all of the vehicles windows.”

The council’s action came after police Chief Stacie Gregory said her department did not want to stalk unhoused people living on Sausalito’s streets but wanted better options to remove longtime offenders.

“We’re very aware that there are people living in their vehicles and this really is a quality of life tool,” she said. “Are we going to go around looking for people parked in their cars sleeping? We understand that people have to do that. This will be used when, say, there’s a motorhome parked on the 1700 block (of Bridgeway) for nine months, and we’re trying to remove it because it’s a nuisance.”

“It’s not to specifically go around and look for people living in their cars, if that helps,” she said. “We have new police officers and parking enforcement that come on and see this as an ordinance and are not aware that we’re not using it. So, it’s just clarifying the code.”

Two council members voiced different concerns about the changes before voting no.

Vice Mayor Steven Woodside was concerned about removing the eight-hour parking limit, even if it was not enforceable. He said the implementation of a new San Francisco ordinance intended to remove “700 or 800 large vehicles” from its streets could push some of them to Sausalito.

Councilmember Melissa Blaustein said she appreciated the “difficulty of enforcement” and there are people who are “inconvenienced or unhappy” with long-term parked vehicles.

“I just have a really hard time supporting something that sort of calls out and victimizes people who are unhoused and sleep in their cars,” she said. “I know that’s not the goal of the police department here … but I just can’t vote for something where it specifically calls out someone for making food in their car or sleeping in their car.”

Mayor Joan Cox, who voted yes, said the city has a long history of helping people find more stable housing, including assisting people who have lived in boats.

“My concern is enforcement. We are already short-staffed on our police force,” Cox said. “So I would say let’s adopt this and see how it goes.”

Gregory said the update was “certainly not something to use as a tool of abuse.”

“Especially not here in Sausalito, when we’ve always had a position of supporting people and helping usher them into housing,” she said. “That’s always been our stated goal and I think we’ve done pretty well on that.”