Is a driveway a "setback"?

[Scottybdivin]

In our area, the setback is for building construction. It determines how far away from a ROW, property line, or easement that you can build your house. The driveway obviously passes through the setback. Now, there may be a rule about long term parking in the setback, which could include the portion of your driveway that passes through it.

[CampinGirl]

I am not trying to start a war as we'll still be neighbors even after the Motorhome is stored elsewhere. Sadly, she has made a number of enemies over this whole debacle.

I did have initial feelings of wanting some sort of revenge, but I tend to be a pretty peaceful person overall.

That said, I snapped a pic of her daily parking situation for the code enforcement officer... Just in case.

[Crankshaft]

I just went through this last night with our cities zoning board. We were trying to get a variance on the setback. According to our city, no RV or boat can be stored beyond the front setback of the property. In other words, it has to be parked flush with the front edge of the house. Our RV is 37 feet and , with the tow bar on, we stick out about 9 feet past the house. Somebody in the neighborhood complained and we got cited. We tried to get a variance because it was only 9 feet and the fence at the back can't be moved because it's right next to the side door which leads to our dog kennel. The city said that wasn't a hardship, we could get the dogs out another way and we should move the fence. The correct way of moving the fence involves changing a window into a door and a door into a window, big expense plus the cost of the fence. We are weighing the cost of lawyers and court costs vs the new door and window. The zoning board was not very open to our arguments for the variance. They focused on one issue, the hardship requirement, and did not take into account anything else, such as the signatures of our neighbors that stated they had no issues with the RV being 9 feet past the house. Nor did they take into account all the pictures we brought them showing that the RV was practically invisible when driving down the street from either direction. It was a very frustrating night.

[pcurt23]

I live in a HOA with restrictions. I can park in front of the house for a few hours to load and unload. In other neighborhoods around us the boat or rv has to be on the side of the house so it is hidden from view.

And really, I don't even want to look at the rv all the time so it goes to a storage yard. You need to find another storage yard that is not so restrictive on working on it. Although any heavy mechanical work will probably not be tolerated anywhere.

[TexasTom]

Originally Posted by CampinGirl

Okay gotcha. Thanks for the insight! So does that mean it can never be parked here?

Maybe. In our previous home in Bedford Texas, they have a law that says that nothing over 25' can be parked within the city limits. And that means nothing. My neighbors found out about that and complained that we couldn't even bring it home to load/unload. When I asked the city manager (super nice guy) he confirmed it even applied to moving trucks, delivery vehicles, etc. and was an unrealistic law, but it was their policy so he couldn't say that they would ignore it.

[BWStark]

We live in Col. Sta., tx. At least here the setback refers to a 10 ft wide strip down either side of the street. This is normally the area where utilities, water meter and tie ins to natural gas lines are located. You cannot fence the area either.

[TQ60]

Looking at the photo it seems you are clear of any sidewalk so no intrusion there.

The area seems to have trees and does not look like there is any possibility of the rv blocking and kind of view of crossing streets or other nonsense related to safety.

Right now the issue is it is stuck and cannot move on its own power so it is stored and not parked so that needs to be fixed right away and you are working on that but keep that a secret and tell NO NEIGHBOR unit it is fixed and then keep quiet about it.

Check with local pd via a visit to their service counter regarding how they enforce parking of daily drivers and large vehicles using both of your photos.

Clearly the neighbor is blocking the sidewalk forcing folks to walk into the street resulting in a safety issue.

Driveways being short or into setback is a concern too.

Near here there was an experiment with driveways about 10 ft long.

Large homes on tiny lots to meet some stupid federal guideline.

Streets also narrow so place is stupid.

Car does not fit driveway and most folks have too much stuff in garage to park inside...

Another story....

You should visit the building department as they also have all of the zoning codes specific to your address and they can look to see exactly what rules are present and if there are and "work arrounds"

We discovered a couple that we applied to get our shop built...

[Old Radios]

Around here the setback is the invisible line parallel to the road across the front wall of all the houses and garages. You can't build anything between that line and the road. Prevents a neighbor from blocking your view of the rest of the road/street in either direction.

From your photo the RV is blocking your neighbors view of the street past your house, clearly closer to the road than the setback of buildings. Pretty standard code in most cities and towns. I live in the country but still could not build my garage closer to the road than the other garages on the road. Setback for the garages here is further back than the houses. Fortunately being out in the country, there is no regulations about setbacks and parking anything here, just location of buildings.

[TQ60]

That setback is for a permanent structure.

Parking in a driveway is allowed.

One needs to get clarification from the pd as to specific code regarding parking on private property.

The rv is considered a passenger unit or non - commercial so the laws regarding parking units exceeding 10k that many places have in place do not apply to rvs.

Others may restrict on street parking but in the driveway on private property is different.

Again...parking and storing have different meaning here.

If legal to park in street for upto 48 hours then park directly in front of complaining neighbor. ..

[ahicks]

Many subs do not allow parking a boat or an RV of any sort in front of the house - which is very likely the reason many others were cited when code enforcement came through. My guess is that's what's going on here.

Maybe a civil exchange with code enforcement would be in order? Myself, I'd just show up at the building department offices (where code enforcement is usually located) and ask to have some questions answered. My experience has been they're pretty good about it - maybe because it's much harder to be a jerk in person.....

If you want to push the issue, you might want to pursue a "selective enforcement" of the ordinance approach? If they're going to push the issue regarding your driveway, to be fair, it should be enforced universally, wherever the ordinance applies. Armed with a camera, it shouldn't take long to provide a reasonable argument where that's not the case. Betting you'll have an easy time providing evidence in other local subs as well as your own.

Down side to the effort might be that best case, that's only going to lend a temporary reprieve. Might get you out of a fine though.....

[Mich F]

Originally Posted by Half Dimes

There'll be no one for your neighbor to complain to between Friday afternoon and Monday morning.

In the city I live in, our police can act as code enforcement officers for those times that the code enforcement people aren't working.

[IC2]

You have to get real clarification of the zoning from the local town/city building department as to what and where you can park something other then a passenger car/pickup. The local PD does not have that kind of information. If someone makes a complaint, it will eventually end up somewhere at the building department and the code enforcement officer. Yes, the PD or sheriff may deliver the citation, but as a part of their duties. You may also be hobbled by a HOA which you should have as a part of your deed. Those will usually give you a certain amount of time to load/unload in prep for a trip or minor maintenance. These @#$% HOA are often toothless regardless of the fact it costs you a yearly assessment but if someone wants to pick a fight, they drag it out and make waves. These HOA's or in our case, lack of, are why we still live where we are instead of another state with a more temperate climate. I can park our 38 foot 5er and 23 foot TV in our driveway on its own pad here - but they are over 75 feet back. There are times when I wish we had a HOA as neighbors both side would be required to do at least the minimum yard maintenance instead of 'cultivating' weeds and trash.

Good luck

[CampinGirl]

Originally Posted by TQ60

Right now the issue is it is stuck and cannot move on its own power so it is stored and not parked so that needs to be fixed right away and you are working on that but keep that a secret and tell NO NEIGHBOR unit it is fixed and then keep quiet about it.

To be clear, we disconnected the auto brake and changed an alternator (quickly, while no one was looking, and without having a thousand tools strewn about)

So it is running & driveable. We have to take it to an electrician tomorrow and it will be there for a bit. In the meantime, we've checked out 3 storage facilities so once it's done at the electrician, we can move it to one of those.

Tonight we have the meeting with the code enforcement officer so I will report back with what I find out.

[Bob55]

Please do let us know how it goes....maybe your PITA (Pain In The) neighbor will be in for a surprise!