A California Assemblyman is attempting to introduce legislation that will prevent Snowbirds from returning to their favourite RV Park for a full year. This will prevent RVers from booking the following season at their favourite time of year.
Perry Mack: Does that mean if I have three favourite RV parks and I stay at each one and then come home, that I can't go back to those RV parks for a full 12 months, so I actually miss the next winter season? Is that right?
Dyana Kelley: Yes, that is the potential.
Perry Mack: Dyana Kelley is the President and CEO of the California Outdoor Hospitality Association. An advisor to the American Glamping Association, she holds a seat on the board of CalTravel and is a member of their Government Relations Committee.
As leader of one of the nation's largest state associations, Diana is focused on supporting and promoting the California Outdoor Hospitality Association member parks, while also creating unity within the outdoor hospitality sector. She works tirelessly to ensure that outdoor hospitality is a valued and recognized segment of travel and tourism nationwide.
Hello, Dyana, and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.
Dyana Kelley: Well, thank you so much for having me. That was like quite a mouthful.
Perry Mack: Well, you know, I'm really glad that you reached out to us about this. But, you know, help us understand a little. What are the current federal rules regarding Canadians visiting the USA in any given 12-month period?
Dyana Kelley: Well, from what I understand, you can be granted up to six months, but also request a longer stay if you do so at the beginning of your request.
So once you're here in California, it's more difficult to go back and say, hey, I want to stay an extra six months or I want to stay an extra three or four months.
But if you do so up front, because you know you're going to want to stay longer, it's a little bit easier to do that at that point in time.
Perry Mack: Does California have legislation that further restricts park use for campers, RVers?
Dyana Kelley: Yeah. So what a lot of people don't understand, and as the California Outdoor Hospitality Association, what I do is represent California's RV parks and campgrounds all up and down the state, all different sizes of properties, all different types of properties.
California's RV parks and campgrounds are regulated through housing. So through the California Housing and Development Department, it's a state agency. And within that, there are a lot of regulations governing how we operate. And it can be everything from length of stay restrictions to how much space you can actually occupy.
So as a traveler, you may think this is my lot, I can do whatever I want with it, but you are actually regulated on how much of that lot you can actually occupy. So there's a lot of regulatory involved, more than most people would think.
Perry Mack: What is the proposed legislation and how is it different from what currently exists?
Dyana Kelley: Well, before we get to that, one thing that most travelers need to understand is that there is a virtual patchwork of length of stay restrictions. What that means is that every park, every community, every local agency can designate how long someone's actually allowed to stay in an RV park. And that is, could be, like I said, it's a patchwork, right? So it could be coastal commission has designations, local agencies might have designations. There might be land leases involved that have designations. So there's no one set bit of regulations that tell you how long you can stay on a property.
Perry Mack: It's fair to say that people should definitely have a good look at the website and read through that page of rules and regulations because it's not all the same. They may have been to a nearby park, but this park is under different legislation and has different rules.
Dyana Kelley: Absolutely. A hundred percent. Yeah. Really, really important to inform yourself up front. And if there are restrictions and they tell you, well, you're going to have to be out of the park for X number of days, it's really important that you understand that up front and that you have a plan. Well, where am I going to go for that few days, few weeks, whatever that happens to be if I want to come back into that same park? And then what does that look like? If you are in a park for six months and you go out for two weeks, but then you want to come back in for another six months, you're probably not going to be able to. You're only going to be able to stay in that park three months. Right. So, right. There's some things like that that you you really need to understand. And hopefully the park owner helps you navigate that. But yeah, it's important to know ahead of time.
An assemblyman in San Diego, so in Southern California, decided that he didn't like this idea that some people would stay in a park for a period of time, go out and come back in and re-register. He looks at that as a way for RV park owners to prevent residency, because under our residency laws governing RV parks, if someone stays in the park nine months, nine consecutive months or more, they become a resident.
Perry Mack: So when you say residency, what exactly do you mean by that? Like as a resident, it turns you into a resident.
Dyana Kelley: Yeah. So after nine consecutive months in a park, when you have residency, there are different laws that apply in terms of removals and evictions.
So if for some reason somebody needed to be removed for the park because of rule violations or they weren't paying rent or something like that, there are different laws that apply much to someone who might be staying in a mobile home park. It's very similar to that. And that's not the way RV parks were designed, right? They weren't built for permanent residency, so to maintain that transient occupancy is really important.
Now we want to keep our sites open for travelers, right? If suddenly we have people that aren't leaving and you're coming in and now you can't get in and you had a reservation because I've got people in there that aren't leaving, that presents a big problem.
So obviously parks don't want to be residential parks, they want to have people coming and going. And so they do their best to make sure that we never get to that stage. And this assemblyman decided that if somebody really wanted to live in your park, they should be allowed to. So they should just be allowed to stay.
You know, to be honest, some of those parks that your snowbirds visit, they like the idea that people can come and go and come back and go to another park and come back to their park and have that flexibility. And this would really limit that.
Perry Mack: Does that mean if I have three favourite RV parks and I stay at each one and then come home that I can't go back to those RV parks for a full 12 months so I actually miss the next winter season? Is that right?
Dyana Kelley: Yes, that is the potential. The other piece of it is that the burden of proof to show that no, I'm not preventing residency, this person is traveling, ends up being on the RV park owner.
In order to prevent future problems, most RV park owners would say, well, you can have one stay and then you won't be able to come back for 12 months, because they're obviously going to want to protect themselves and they don't want to start getting into any gray areas.
They can't make an exception for say somebody coming from Canada over, well, this guy lives here in town and he just wants to try and weasel his way into a nice spot on the beach, right? So, it would really limit what the owners would be able to do. And they would be afraid of taking, you know, that risk for sure.
Perry Mack: It sounds like it could be confusing to snowbirds, Canadians and the northern US folks. It could cost California a lot of money if people say, you know, I'm just not going to come back again next year or I'm going to go find a new park in Arizona, for instance. Yeah, it could cost California, I think, a lot of money. What do you think?
Dyana Kelley: Oh, no, absolutely it could. You know, I have a park in Morro Bay, for instance, and they support a lot of snowbird travelers. And those people, like you said, they make their reservations a year in advance and they want to come back there.
That also helps Andy carry that park through the winter, right? So he can keep that park open all year long. If this goes into effect at some point in time and those parks lose that business, we could essentially lose a lot of RV parks. They could start shutting down.
Not to mention the tourism dollars that the snowbird travelers bring in. It's not just what they spend in the park, but they spend money in the community.
And we also, the local destinations lose out on the tourism occupancy taxes that they pay here in California. So oftentimes when they make their reservation that first 30 days, those 30 nights of stay go into the tourism occupancy tax for that local designation or that local destination. And they lose out on that too. So it could be very substantial in several different buckets, for sure.
Perry Mack: When do you think this could be enacted, this legislation?
Dyana Kelley: Well, it was voted on in the Senate Judiciary Committee just this past Tuesday, and the senators saw the writing on the wall and actually voted it down. Senate Judiciary is legal. So they were very, very smart in reading through some of the, cutting through some of the red tape of this.
However, they did offer the assemblyman the opportunity to bring the bill back in the spring. And I fully anticipate that he will bring it back. I don't know what it's going to look like at that point in time, or if he's going to be open to working with us on it. They did suggest that he work with opposition, but, you know, that remains to be seen. And it remains to be seen what it would really look like. But I do think you're right. If those travelers are confused by what they can, where they can go and how long they can stay and what the regulations are, they're likely to go to Arizona. It's much more flexible, you know, destination for things like this. And that, that will end up really hurting us in the end.
Perry Mack: Now, is there any possibility, so for instance, I have reservations in Coachella. Is there any possibility that my reservations might be canceled because I was there last year?
Dyana Kelley: Not at this time. I would not anticipate that. But knowing that this is pending, somewhat pending legislation, I think the RV parks and campgrounds are really going to have to rethink some of their policies and practices. So that if this should come down or if we see that we are now more in the limelight on some of these housing issues, we might have to make adjustments to kind of stave that off. And, and that's unfortunate. I don't think that RV parks and campgrounds should be used as an answer to the housing and homeless crisis here in California. And it feels a little bit like that's what this bill would be pushing us into.
Perry Mack: You're absolutely right. You know, I really didn't understand why they would sort of limit or make it hard for people to RV in their campgrounds. But now I see his goal is to use RV parks to solve homelessness, providing sort of cheap accommodations for people that can't afford anything else.
Dyana Kelley: Aside from our snowbird travelers, you know, oftentimes, and you guys probably run into this in parks that you're traveling in, we have traveling nurses, we have traveling doctors, you know, in our fire prone areas, as you know, in California, we have a lot of that. And now we have PG&E line workers that stay for months and months at a time. And sometimes those contracts get extended, and we want the option to be able to allow those people to stay in the park without necessarily becoming a resident, because that's not the intent, but to allow them to still get their job done or to stay for an extended period of time if they would like to.
Perry Mack: Dyana what can we do as RVers and campers and not necessarily Canadians, even Americans, and perhaps they're out of state residents, because really that's our audience, what can we do to sort of help ensure that this legislation is not passed?
Dyana Kelley: I think it's important to kind of watch what some of the state associations are doing. So if you know California and Arizona are a place that you'd like to travel, it's important to kind of touch in with those state associations, both California and Arizona have state associations, and you can kind of track, like, you know, legislative issues. And if there's an opportunity to get involved, say if this was to keep going, or if it comes back in the spring, it might be a good an opportunity for travelers to reach out to the assemblymen and say, hey, here's why we don't agree with this bill, you know, or as a group, you could sign on in opposition of legislation that affects the RV parks.
But I think more and more it's important for groups like yours to try and follow some of this legislation. And I know that would be hard because you probably go to several different states, but just kind of checking in on it to see if there are things that are going to affect the places that you like to travel the most. And what that looks like and how it could affect your future reservations for sure.
Perry Mack: Dyana, is there something else that we can do or help or is there any other information that you'd like to provide for us today?
Dyana Kelley: Well, any of your members are welcome to follow our newsletter, and they can get information on that at caloha.org. That's our member website. They can also call the office at any time and request information. But we do put a lot of information out on our Facebook group also. So it's the California Outdoor Hospitality Facebook group. And we try to put all of our legislation on there. So if they are a Snowbird traveler and they indicate that that's who they are and they'd like to get more information, they're welcome to join our Facebook group to catch that legislation as well.
So there's lots of different ways they can kind of plug in to follow up. But that's what I would recommend. And as this legislation comes back in the spring, I would certainly probably be reaching out to some of these RV groups to have them join us in opposition of some of this so that the legislators really understand that this isn't just me saying this is an issue. But now we've got our actual RV travelers saying, hey, no, this is an issue. We want the right to be able to come here and not be confused about what the regulations are. So I think that piece is going to be important in the future.
And you know, one of the other things to keep in mind too is oftentimes what happens here in California with regards to legislation starts to make its way across the state or across the country. So, yes, Arizona, then it skips and it goes to Florida, it goes to New York. Right.
So those those corners all start looking at what we're doing and start making moves for that. So we want to be careful about what we start here for sure. You know, it'd be nice if in the old days, you know, it was just, yeah, come stay stay as long as you want. Come and go, you know, but we're not really there anymore. And I think more and more across the country with homelessness on the rise and housing, you know, being what it is that the parks are going to have a more difficult time accepting extended stay travelers when they now also have a park that's full of residents as well, so.
Perry Mack: That's a very good point. Very good point. Well, Dyana, thanks very much for taking the time to chat with us today. That was that was great. Obviously I have some concerns with it. I'll be checking out your website. I think you said it was caloha.org. Is that right?
Dyana Kelley: Right.
Perry Mack: All right. And of course, your Facebook page.
Dyana Kelley: Hey, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking this on for sharing the information for getting your group involved and for allowing me to share some education about the backside of an RV park and what that looks like.
Perry Mack: You're very welcome. Let's do it again.
Dyana Kelley: Okay, absolutely. Take care.
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