84th Recap: RV Park Infrastructure

One of the many bills TMHA worked on this session was HB 3266 dealing with infrastructure standards in Recreational Vehicle Parks and Campgrounds. TMHA became involved with the bill author and bill supporters early in the process to add additional clarity as to the bill's application. As filed there was legal confusion distinguishing between the definitions of an RV Park and a manufactured home community. After working on the bill language when the bill came up in committee, new language was included clearly distinguishing between parks and communities.

The concept of the bill was intriguing and one our industry could easily support. The bill proponents were having difficulties with cities requiring all manner of requirements, modifications, and other infrastructure demands to build or expand RV parks. The bill sought to fix this by adopting a state wide RV park infrastructure standard that would then pre-empt all city authority and prohibit cities from dictating any different standards.

There are obvious similarities and struggles experienced in the manufactured housing community industry with cities, so this idea served as an interesting "weather balloon" to the viability of limiting city authority to a specific class of property development.

The bill passed out of committee, incidentally which was chaired by the bill's author, by a 5 to 2 vote. Unfortunately, once out of committee and sent to Calendars the bill stopped moving. Presumably due to opposition to the bill by cities and their lobby efforts. The bill failed to subsequently reach the House floor and died in Calendars.

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