Mitchell proposes overnight ban on parking RVs and campers on New Bedford streets, with a $300 fine
The mayor wrote that the city keeps getting complaints about campers and RVs that people are living in, many on Cleveland and Harbor streets in the South End and Coffin Avenue in the North End, and that the city has no reliable legal basis to keep them off the street.
NEW BEDFORD Recreational vehicles, motor homes and campers could no longer park on New Bedford streets from dusk until dawn under an ordinance Mayor Jon Mitchell has sent the City Council for its Friday meeting.
Breaking the rule would bring a $300 fine through the city's existing list of fines handled outside criminal court, where a companion ordinance renames the trailer entry to cover habitable vehicles. Both are on the agenda for the council's special meeting at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13, in Room 214 at City Hall, which was moved from Thursday because of the Veterans Day holiday.
What the ordinance says
The new rule would read: "From dusk until dawn, the parking of a recreational vehicle, motor home, mobile home, trailer home, camper or any similar vehicle designed for human habitation is prohibited on any public way or city property."
The section's existing rule on trailers would stay, so a boat trailer, utility trailer, trailer coach or other trailer still could not be left on a city street or city property unless it is hitched to a vehicle and ready to be towed away. The ordinance moves mobile homes and similar vehicles out of that paragraph and into the new overnight ban, and renames the section to cover habitable vehicles.
Why the mayor says it is needed
In a Nov. 5 letter to Council President Ryan J. Pereira and the council, Mitchell wrote that about two years ago the city began hearing complaints about an unusual number of campers and RVs parked on city streets that did not belong to nearby homeowners. Some were abandoned, he wrote, and others appeared to be lived in, often by people who were not from the city.
"Residents reported that the occupants of the vehicles were in effect squatting in their neighborhoods, raising a host of public safety concerns," the mayor wrote, adding that city councilors had made similar observations and asked the administration to find a solution.
The Police Department and the city's facilities and fleet department set up a way to remove, hold and sell or destroy abandoned vehicles, and removed 48 campers, RVs and boats from city streets, according to the letter. Few, if any, abandoned campers remain, Mitchell wrote, but complaints about occupied ones continue.
The occupied vehicles are not limited to one neighborhood but seem to cluster on Cleveland and Harbor streets in the South End and on Coffin Avenue in the North End, the letter says. Neighbors have told the city that occupants used public sidewalks to extend their living space and catch basins to dispose of waste from their vehicles, and that they have persistently declined police requests to move, according to the mayor.
The abandoned vehicles could be removed because nearly all of them were unregistered, Mitchell wrote, while the occupied ones almost always carry a current registration, and the city has no reliable legal basis to keep them off the street.
Other communities
Mitchell wrote that many if not most Massachusetts communities bar campers or mobile homes from parking on public ways. He pointed to Quincy, which bans public parking of a long list of large vehicles including an "auto home, camper, or mobile home," and to Dartmouth, which he said has a nighttime prohibition.
He proposed the nighttime approach, writing that "it would be sufficient to eliminate the problem of RVs and campers parking for extended periods in the public way, but it still would afford residents who own such vehicles ample opportunity to move them to their driveway or another site for overnight parking."
What happens next
The two ordinances reach the council Friday on the mayor's papers, and the ban would not start until the council passes it. Under state law, an ordinance the council passes goes to the mayor, who may sign it or return it with written objections, and one he does not return within 10 days takes effect. The ordinance text says it takes effect under Chapter 43 of the state's general laws.
The meeting is streamed live and recorded, and it can be watched from the City of New Bedford homepage under Quick Links, then Meetings. The City Council Office is at 508-979-1455.
Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.
Notes
Every fact comes from Mayor Jon Mitchell's Nov. 5 letter to the New Bedford City Council and the two ordinances attached to the council's posted agenda for Friday, Nov. 13, the council president's Nov. 10 call of the meeting, and state law on mayoral approval. We read them on Nov. 11. The complaints, the 48 vehicles removed, the streets named and the other communities' rules are as the mayor's letter states them. We checked each date and weekday against a calendar. Not heard: this preview rests on the posted record.
Corrections
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Sources (4)
- Mayor Jon Mitchell to the New Bedford City Council, ordinances on trailers, habitable vehicles and structures on public waysCity of New Bedford, attached to the Nov. 13, 2026, City Council agenda (item M7). Two-page letter dated Nov. 5, 2026; Chapter 23 ordinance (dusk to dawn ban, trailer paragraph); Chapter 17 ordinance ($300 fine, noncriminal disposition). Read Nov. 11, 2026.
- New Bedford City Council agenda, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, 6 p.m. (special meeting)City of New Bedford, Granicus agenda viewer, event 603; posted Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. Items M7, M7a and M7b; stream line; ADA phone line. Read Nov. 11, 2026.
- Council President Ryan J. Pereira to City Clerk Dennis W. Farias, call of the special meetingLetter dated Nov. 10, 2026: meeting moved to Friday, Nov. 13, 6 p.m., because of the Veterans Day holiday. Read Nov. 11, 2026.
- M.G.L. c. 43, s. 55: approval or veto by mayor of orders, ordinancesEvery ordinance goes to the mayor; returned with written objections or in force after 10 days. Read Nov. 11, 2026.