4 ms·

Actually a better business is to start having more RV parks in the SV. The last 5 years has been record breaking sales history for RVs. Yet the rest of the indu

Actually a better business is to start having more RV parks in the SV. The last 5 years has been record breaking sales history for RVs. Yet the rest of the industry (RV parks specifically) isn't catching up. Most of the people buying RVs are now surprised that no RV parks have availability. I've watched for the past 5 years bay area periphery cities go from having tons of space any time of the year, to being completely full all the time, no matter what they do to their monthly price. It's kinda crazy.

ChuckMcM 8y ago
Sort of, sort of not. I agree that it would be better to create more RV parks but the zoning issues are pretty extreme in that most cities are not big fans of RV parks for more historical reasons than actual ones. Sunnyvale, as a city, has preserved its mobile home parks in an effort to keep housing more affordable. I have an inquiry out to a developer on the cost of building a 'multi-story' RV park. Not trying to recreate the "stacks" here (if you're a Ready Player One fan), but wondering if you could increase the available parking spots while not consuming additional acreage. It has to be a better use than 'public storage' buildings.
- rhacker 8y ago
  These fifth wheels and class As can weigh up to 24000 pounds (even if they where never legally allowed to). A moving object at that weight would make a multi-story RV park an architecture/safety nightmare. I'm talking about east-bay area that still has space. Not sunnyvale. - Just checked out the ready player one images - holy mother of guacamole.
  - axaxs 8y ago
    What about having ground level RV, and apartment/condo/business space on top? * And perhaps additional levels of parking for tenants.
  - ChuckMcM 8y ago
    I agree they are heavy, and even more heavy than the bus chassis they are built on top of, but I see that as an engineering problem right? There are bus depot parking structures where unused commercial buses are parked. And my civil engineering friends are fond of saying that with enough steel and concrete you can hold up anything :-). So as a mental exercise in scaling density by going vertical, in my sketchbook using lot "sizes" that were similar to a KOA RV campground as a baseline (about 30' x 60' per space), an 8 story parking complex on a 5 acre lot could hold 250+ spaces. Ok, and the idea isn't even original, see this: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/mobile-home-skyscrapers-elusive-dream-vertical-urban-trailer-parks/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/mobile-home-skyscrape...
    - Kadin 8y ago
      It's certainly possible, but with a lot less steel and concrete you could just build walls and have, you know, apartments. My guess is it's easier to find investors for that, too. The only reason I can imagine a multi-storey RV park making sense would be to take advantage of some weird zoning quirk or something. But that's a lot of money to throw at what's effectively a legal vulnerability that will probably quickly be fixed.
      - ChuckMcM 8y ago
        I don't disagree, the changes that a multi-level RV park bring are a more flexible pricing structure, a lower cost facilities budget, and perhaps a lower cost maintenance load. From a cash flow perspective I started with parking garages as a business model. The typical 'monthly parking' type garage is a concrete and steel affair with sprinklers and elevators as its biggest operational expense, a bit more if you add an on-site office for an attendant to capture additional revenue from special events. All the space that requires maintenance in an apartment building that is 'non-apartment' doesn't exist in an RV park. You don't repaint or re-carpet, you don't send HVAC dollars on cooling or heating, Etc. My assumption (and I'm open minded about missing things) are that using the ratio of comparing of a traditional RV park to a one story apartment complex is a valid way to estimate expenses and cash flow. Then to extrapolate by adding additional layers to the RV park. There are also different tax treatments but I suspect that if the difference there appears to exploitable that it will be quickly changed. The biggest complaint about RV parks are that they are RV parks and they are an "eyesore". By enclosing the park you can improve the optics, and by increasing the density you grow the ROI relative to an apartment by the cost ratio. But is it a $5M project, a $10M project, or a $25M project that I don't know yet. And while a casual polling of city folks about which would they prefer, RV's parked on the street or parked in an externally attractive structure set aside for them, polls favorably, it isn't clear that is enough to get final approval.
  - wiredfool 8y ago
    From an engineering perspective, cars and trucks aren’t that heavy, because their weight is spread over a large area, and they can’t squish together like humans. Roughly, you’re not going to get over 60psf with vehicle traffic or storage. People jammed together can be 200psf, as can library stacks, and indoor pools are potentially even worse.
- mikeryan 8y ago
  The other issue here is one of available housing. Most california cities are under extreme pressure to increase housing supply, an RV lot isn't going to house as many people as a condo/apartment building. (I honestly don't even know if an RV park counts towards overall housing supply) Though the stacks idea is interesting ;-) There's a few buildings going up in the Oakland Temescal by Rad Urban which are modular its been cool seeing units with kitchens etc already installed getting stacked up into a larger complex. https://radurban.com/ https://radurban.com/
- 0000011111 8y ago
  We need stacks like in ready player one!
  - bredren 8y ago
    There was one at the burn last year.
- masonic 8y ago
  Sunnyvale, as a city, has preserved its mobile home parks in an effort to keep housing more affordable. Um, what? Is there a single surviving RV park in Sunnyvale south of the train tracks? In the past year, the last two I know of (Blue Bonnet and the one on ECR near Poplar) shut down, with everybody ejected. Several of the mobile homes at the latter were outright abandoned, since there was no place to move to.
joe_the_user 8y ago
Uh, the non-existence of RV parks in SV is hardly an oversight. The social stigma of the "trailer park" is high but that's ultimately a marker for trailer and RV parks reducing home values. And why that reduced value? Sure, perception are a big thing but these funnel into increased supply means reduced prices. Even in situation of hardship, “I would have bought my house next to a trailer park if I wanted that — but I didn’t," becomes the ultimate reaction [1]. [1] Chico Resist FEMA Trailers: https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article223308300.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article22...
TomMckenny 8y ago
>no matter what they do to their monthly price Give it time, without controls it will become ludicrously unaffordable sooner rather than later.
beatpanda 8y ago
If you fixed the zoning issues preventing you from building an RV park you're 80% of the way to solving the housing issue entirely. So, go for it I guess!
jameslk 8y ago
RV parks are expensive. Why not buy deeded RV lots individually and build your empire piecemeal?

ChuckMcM 8y ago

Sort of, sort of not. I agree that it would be better to create more RV parks but the zoning issues are pretty extreme in that most cities are not big fans of RV parks for more historical reasons than actual ones. Sunnyvale, as a city, has preserved its mobile home parks in an effort to keep housing more affordable. I have an inquiry out to a developer on the cost of building a 'multi-story' RV park. Not trying to recreate the "stacks" here (if you're a Ready Player One fan), but wondering if you could increase the available parking spots while not consuming additional acreage. It has to be a better use than 'public storage' buildings.

rhacker 8y ago
These fifth wheels and class As can weigh up to 24000 pounds (even if they where never legally allowed to). A moving object at that weight would make a multi-story RV park an architecture/safety nightmare. I'm talking about east-bay area that still has space. Not sunnyvale. - Just checked out the ready player one images - holy mother of guacamole.
- axaxs 8y ago
  What about having ground level RV, and apartment/condo/business space on top? * And perhaps additional levels of parking for tenants.
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  I agree they are heavy, and even more heavy than the bus chassis they are built on top of, but I see that as an engineering problem right? There are bus depot parking structures where unused commercial buses are parked. And my civil engineering friends are fond of saying that with enough steel and concrete you can hold up anything :-). So as a mental exercise in scaling density by going vertical, in my sketchbook using lot "sizes" that were similar to a KOA RV campground as a baseline (about 30' x 60' per space), an 8 story parking complex on a 5 acre lot could hold 250+ spaces. Ok, and the idea isn't even original, see this: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/mobile-home-skyscrapers-elusive-dream-vertical-urban-trailer-parks/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/mobile-home-skyscrape...
  - Kadin 8y ago
    It's certainly possible, but with a lot less steel and concrete you could just build walls and have, you know, apartments. My guess is it's easier to find investors for that, too. The only reason I can imagine a multi-storey RV park making sense would be to take advantage of some weird zoning quirk or something. But that's a lot of money to throw at what's effectively a legal vulnerability that will probably quickly be fixed.
    - ChuckMcM 8y ago
      I don't disagree, the changes that a multi-level RV park bring are a more flexible pricing structure, a lower cost facilities budget, and perhaps a lower cost maintenance load. From a cash flow perspective I started with parking garages as a business model. The typical 'monthly parking' type garage is a concrete and steel affair with sprinklers and elevators as its biggest operational expense, a bit more if you add an on-site office for an attendant to capture additional revenue from special events. All the space that requires maintenance in an apartment building that is 'non-apartment' doesn't exist in an RV park. You don't repaint or re-carpet, you don't send HVAC dollars on cooling or heating, Etc. My assumption (and I'm open minded about missing things) are that using the ratio of comparing of a traditional RV park to a one story apartment complex is a valid way to estimate expenses and cash flow. Then to extrapolate by adding additional layers to the RV park. There are also different tax treatments but I suspect that if the difference there appears to exploitable that it will be quickly changed. The biggest complaint about RV parks are that they are RV parks and they are an "eyesore". By enclosing the park you can improve the optics, and by increasing the density you grow the ROI relative to an apartment by the cost ratio. But is it a $5M project, a $10M project, or a $25M project that I don't know yet. And while a casual polling of city folks about which would they prefer, RV's parked on the street or parked in an externally attractive structure set aside for them, polls favorably, it isn't clear that is enough to get final approval.
- wiredfool 8y ago
  From an engineering perspective, cars and trucks aren’t that heavy, because their weight is spread over a large area, and they can’t squish together like humans. Roughly, you’re not going to get over 60psf with vehicle traffic or storage. People jammed together can be 200psf, as can library stacks, and indoor pools are potentially even worse.
mikeryan 8y ago
The other issue here is one of available housing. Most california cities are under extreme pressure to increase housing supply, an RV lot isn't going to house as many people as a condo/apartment building. (I honestly don't even know if an RV park counts towards overall housing supply) Though the stacks idea is interesting ;-) There's a few buildings going up in the Oakland Temescal by Rad Urban which are modular its been cool seeing units with kitchens etc already installed getting stacked up into a larger complex. https://radurban.com/ https://radurban.com/
0000011111 8y ago
We need stacks like in ready player one!
- bredren 8y ago
  There was one at the burn last year.
masonic 8y ago
Sunnyvale, as a city, has preserved its mobile home parks in an effort to keep housing more affordable. Um, what? Is there a single surviving RV park in Sunnyvale south of the train tracks? In the past year, the last two I know of (Blue Bonnet and the one on ECR near Poplar) shut down, with everybody ejected. Several of the mobile homes at the latter were outright abandoned, since there was no place to move to.

joe_the_user 8y ago

Uh, the non-existence of RV parks in SV is hardly an oversight. The social stigma of the "trailer park" is high but that's ultimately a marker for trailer and RV parks reducing home values. And why that reduced value? Sure, perception are a big thing but these funnel into increased supply means reduced prices. Even in situation of hardship, “I would have bought my house next to a trailer park if I wanted that — but I didn’t," becomes the ultimate reaction [1]. [1] Chico Resist FEMA Trailers: https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article223308300.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article22...

TomMckenny 8y ago

>no matter what they do to their monthly price Give it time, without controls it will become ludicrously unaffordable sooner rather than later.

beatpanda 8y ago

If you fixed the zoning issues preventing you from building an RV park you're 80% of the way to solving the housing issue entirely. So, go for it I guess!

jameslk 8y ago

RV parks are expensive. Why not buy deeded RV lots individually and build your empire piecemeal?