| Author | Message | ||
| James Dersch (Dncrjim)
Registered Member Username: Dncrjim Post Number: 6 Registered: 11-2007 Posted From: 190.55.44.242 Rating: N/A |
While I am not yet the proud owner of a bus, I am the owner of a camper. A camper which I may soon be living in. (not economic, more convenience/appropriateness) As such, I am looking to park it somewhere. While I have been running searches around where I live for a place to park, I am very interested in finding out what it would take (from both a money and legal standpoint) to install hookups on property I own. Has anyone done this for their bus? At the very least, does anyone have suggestions on who I should be talking to locally? | ||
| FAST FRED (Fast_fred)
Registered Member Username: Fast_fred Post Number: 268 Registered: 10-2006 Posted From: 66.90.229.219 Rating: |
"I am very interested in finding out what it would take (from both a money and legal standpoint) to install hookups on property I own. Has anyone done this for their bus? At the very least, does anyone have suggestions on who I should be talking to locally?" Basically nobody. The biggest question is what to do with the waste water. If you plan on building a house someday , plat the location and install a legal septic system . FF | ||
| J.C.B. (Eagle)
Registered Member Username: Eagle Post Number: 138 Registered: 12-2000 Posted From: 166.214.253.154  Rating: N/A |
In most places you will have to get permits to install electric, water, and septic systems. The main point is not let them know that you want them for a motorhome. Get the permits as if you are going to build a house. | ||
| Sean Welsh (Sean)
Registered Member Username: Sean Post Number: 724 Registered: 1-2003 Posted From: 72.171.0.148  Rating: N/A |
Allow me to share a cautionary tale. As most here know, we live in our bus full time. When we moved aboard, we legally "moved" from our former home state of Taxifornia to Washington. In order to legally vote in Washington, you need to have a "real" address (as opposed to merely a PO box or mail drop), and so we bought an empty parcel of land that happened to already have a street address assigned by the post office. (Ironically, the post office will not deliver to this address, even if we installed a mail box, because federal regulations prohibit them from delivering to an address without a habitable structure on it. So even though we vote "from" this address and register our vehicles to it, we receive all our mail at a mail drop in a different county.) We ended up buying a parcel at a "resort" development known as Desert Aire because it was dirt cheap, and here's why: The development, started in the '60's, never took off the way the developers foresaw. Despite being right on a lake, with a golf course and private air strip to boot, the place was just too far from civilization to attract critical mass. It did not help that it was downwind of the Hanford nuclear facility. In the '80's and early '90's, the place got "discovered" by RV snowbirds. Property was cheap, utilities were available, and the weather is perfect during the time of year that the southern snowbird destinations (Mexico, Arizona, etc.) are miserably hot. Hundreds of lots were sold to people who went down to the county, pulled their permits, and built basically RV pads -- a driveway of either concrete or gravel, a septic system, a water connection, and a power pedestal. The county gleefully approved the plans for all of these improvements. Many owners subsequently built up their personal camp sites with various improvements: storage sheds, built-in BBQ's and chimineas, even entire outdoor kitchens, as well as elaborate patios and landscaping. Mostly, the snowbirds lived in harmony with the more permanent residents (or the seasonal residents) who built stick-built houses or installed modular structures. Then in the early 2000's, someone in the development with a stick-built house filed a complaint that, in accordance with state and county laws, it was unlawful for people to live in recreational vehicles, even on private land, except in legitimate RV parks. This turns out to be true. In fact, with only a couple of exceptions, you can only live in your RV in Washington in an RV park. Furthermore, most RV parks in Washington are zoned "recreational use", which restricts any individual to a maximum of six months each year in that park (although we are personally aware of at least two "recreational" ownership RV developments who are selling lots like crazy to people who live on them year-round). After taking the matter to court, the county and the Desert Aire Owners Association basically fought over who was going to enforce this, as neither wanted to do it. In the end, the court said the county had the obligation to enforce it's own laws, and that's what happened. In deference to those folks who had spent tons of money to build their RV sites, the county gave everyone a year of grace. But they were firm: Build a real house (or single- or double-wide modular, in the parts of the development so zoned), or move out by the end of the grace period. When we bought our lot (which is completely empty -- it was not one of the ones developed for RV use), the grace period was already over, and we could drive through the development past dozens and dozens of vacated RV lots -- very sad to see. The people who built those lots lost a bunch of money. Ironically, so did everyone else including the original complainant, since the mass exodus of RVers dumped all of those lots on the already very limited market. Most of the "improvements" to the lots are not really usable by anyone who buys them. (All of this was to our benefit, as we got our property for a song.) The moral of this story is this: Research the laws yourself. Understand that if you ignore any such law simply because there is a long history of non-enforcement, you may still be taking a big risk. You can sink thousands of dollars into your RV pad (between septic, water, and power), even getting permits and having the neighbors look on approvingly while you build. Then you can move in, and all it takes is ONE person who doesn't like what you've done to go down to the city/county/state and demand that they enforce their laws. FWIW. -Sean http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com | ||
| niles steckbauer (Niles500)
Registered Member Username: Niles500 Post Number: 829 Registered: 11-2004 Posted From: 71.42.167.154 Rating: N/A |
Sean is correct - your first stop should be the zoning dept. - zoning laws are local and there are a few (very few) places that have zoning classifications for rv sites - typically you must have a residential structure first, although minimum square footage living area can be as little as 600 sq.ft. - HTH ** the place was just too far from civilization ** LOVE THAT PLACE When people ask where I'm going this summer I tell them "far from civilization", then they just ease away from me - | ||
| James Dersch (Dncrjim)
Registered Member Username: Dncrjim Post Number: 7 Registered: 11-2007 Posted From: 190.55.44.242 Rating: N/A |
For me this is not a long term solution. Correction, I don't know if this is a long term solution. For me, this is a trial period in many ways. I have been doing some pretty extensive world traveling, and the options that I have when I return home are to live with my parents or find something else. I own some rental property, and was thinking about purchasing more, and a cheap moveable residence is ideal. If nothing else, my current (sad) rv could serve as a home base for renovations. More than anything, I'm looking to find a solution where I can spend minimal money to set up either in the back yard of rental property or an empty lot. It's only a semi-perminent solution which is much complicated by the fact that I have no storage tanks to speak of. (and have to borrow a truck to move the brick) I was hoping that by doing as much as I could "by the book" I would be able to stay where I am at least 6 months. By then if necessary, I could find another place to park, move temporarily into a rental unit, something like that. Either way, I could save serious money, as the areas near where I live to not offer affordable short term rentals, but instead minimum one year leases. Obviously my number one concern is sewer. Second but just as much a worry is a freezing water line. I have at the experience to set up pretty much everything else myself... (There is even a seperate breaker box at one of the places I'm considering.) Of course there are other reasons. I'd like to experiment with living in a small space, and work on some ideas which would be used in a bus in the future. With time tanks and such would probably be added to this instalation both to collect parts and experiment. If anyone has some ideas on things (or perhaps some numbers) that would be awesome. I appreciate so much the input I've already received. You guys are absolutely awesome. *jealous* | ||
| Sean Welsh (Sean)
Registered Member Username: Sean Post Number: 725 Registered: 1-2003 Posted From: 67.142.130.12 Rating: N/A |
The easiest solution, and possibly the least expensive as well when all costs are considered, is to find an RV or mobile home park that allows long-term stays in a trailer. Once upon a time, I lived for over a year in a 32' stick-and-staple motor home at just such an establishment. It was called a "trailer park," there were really no transient spaces (although they would rent whatever was available to transients on a nightly basis). But it was 100% "RV" occupied -- no modular or "single-wide" type units. Many folks were living in 30 year old travel trailers that clearly had not been moved an inch in decades. What I paid monthly for the space, which included sewer, water, and trash (electricity was connected, but separately metered) was by far the cheapest single-unit living arrangement in that city -- even a studio apartment in a run-down building would have been at least double or even triple the rent. FWIW. -Sean http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com |
