Commissioners approve changes to RV ordinance

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SILER CITY — Commissioners unanimously approved amendments to an ordinance allowing for recreational vehicle parks to be within the Siler City extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) on Monday evening.

The town’s planning and community development director, Jack Meadows, originally brought this ordinance amendment to commissioners during their Nov. 15 meeting. During the original presentation of the ordinance changes, commissioners voiced concerns regarding long-term RV residents and having a RV park serve as a temporary housing solution for those who may need it.

Meadows presented several text changes to the ordinance, which would enforce a strict three-month-long limit (90 days) for how long people can stay at an RV park. An exception to the limit is if the individual is a town worker who needs an extended stay in the RV park due to working in the Siler City ETJ.

The ordinance also states a site manager will be on the premises to keep an updated log on how long each RV has stayed in the park. The ordinance also laid out requirements to develop an RV park, such as having to request conditional zoning and having RV parks only accessible by an interior driveway.

Applicants wanting to pursue building an RV Park must present their proposed rules for their park, and they must have water, sewage and waste capacity up to town, county and state standards.

Mayor Pro Tem Chip Price said he believed the new policy brought forth by Meadows and his staff would work in Siler City. However, he said he wants to make sure people do not mix up the temporary housing the board approved with “hybrid parks” that contain both permanent and temporary housing.

Price suggested the planning board could look further into the issue of hybrid parks to see if it is a possibility in the future, but current policy doesn’t provide enough coverage for those permanent dwellings.

“I think the RV thing, we’ve got a good set of rules that I think we got that covered, and I don’t see a problem there,” he said. “The hybrid thing, I don’t think we have enough in this policy to (cover) that.”

Reporter Taylor Heeden can be reached at theeden@chathamnr.com.