Working with the city of Berkeley about parking and showing my Vehicle has been quite the roller coaster ride. Technically, RVs can only be parked 72 hours in one location, but this is mostly only enforced when someone complains.
When I first arrived, I was parked on a noisy main street for a few days while negotiations were underway. It gave my project good exposure, but my roof was shaded and my batteries ran low. Then I was happily anchored on a quiet street with a number of other trailers and bus conversions until a cranky neighbor complained.
Then I moved to the front of the city council bulding to show the council members and the mayor what they would be voting on, and one they approved my project, waited to be assigned a designated spot that would be reserved for me. I expected that to take place within a few days, but it dragged on, and so did the rain, so that I ran out of battery power.
At that point, the two branches of city government turned out to have different views about what had been agreed on. After lots of back and forth, and yes and no, I was offered a month of parking so I could show the community my Vehicle, and talk about the tiny home, environmental and disability access parts of my project.
But although, without an authorized address, I was unable to promote any open house events, one side of the equation wants to count the time I was parked in front of the council building waiting for news. Since it's a bad time of year to try to organize anything, and I have out of town committments January 8-14, I'm back to moving every few days until we can make better use of my presence.
It's a somewhat unnerving state of affairs for me. Last night I got an official knock on the door at 9 pm in a spot a city official suggested was out of the way, where I was unlikely to be bothered. Now I'm off to speak to someone who can authorize or evict me.
When I first arrived, I was parked on a noisy main street for a few days while negotiations were underway. It gave my project good exposure, but my roof was shaded and my batteries ran low. Then I was happily anchored on a quiet street with a number of other trailers and bus conversions until a cranky neighbor complained.
Then I moved to the front of the city council bulding to show the council members and the mayor what they would be voting on, and one they approved my project, waited to be assigned a designated spot that would be reserved for me. I expected that to take place within a few days, but it dragged on, and so did the rain, so that I ran out of battery power.
At that point, the two branches of city government turned out to have different views about what had been agreed on. After lots of back and forth, and yes and no, I was offered a month of parking so I could show the community my Vehicle, and talk about the tiny home, environmental and disability access parts of my project.
But although, without an authorized address, I was unable to promote any open house events, one side of the equation wants to count the time I was parked in front of the council building waiting for news. Since it's a bad time of year to try to organize anything, and I have out of town committments January 8-14, I'm back to moving every few days until we can make better use of my presence.
It's a somewhat unnerving state of affairs for me. Last night I got an official knock on the door at 9 pm in a spot a city official suggested was out of the way, where I was unlikely to be bothered. Now I'm off to speak to someone who can authorize or evict me.
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