Los Angeles City Councilmember Traci Park is once again attempting to expand enforcement of a controversial city ordinance that targets people living in their vehicles. On September 5, Park introduced her 13th motion under LAMC 80.69.4, which allows the city to prohibit overnight parking for “oversized vehicles”—a category that overwhelmingly includes RVs, vans, and buses used as shelter by unhoused Angelenos. The motion, now labeled Council File 25-0008-S24, seeks to ban overnight parking from 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. along three new street segments in her Westside district:

• Stoner Avenue from Brookhaven Avenue to Sardis Avenue
• Imlay Avenue from Culver Drive to Utopia Avenue
• Lucerne Avenue from Sepulveda Boulevard to Beloit Avenue

If passed, the Department of Transportation will post “tow away, no parking” signs and begin enforcement immediately, continuing a pattern of what critics call performative displacement.

Park’s office justified the motion using boilerplate language that has appeared in many of her previous oversized vehicle ban resolutions, citing vague safety concerns such as “constricted travel lanes” and “dangerous situations.” However, no data was provided to substantiate these claims or demonstrate that vehicle dwellers are responsible for safety hazards on the listed streets.

This is the 13th such motion Park has introduced since March 2023, bringing the total number of restricted street segments in Council District 11 to at least 91. All twelve of Park’s previous 80.69.4 motions have been rubber-stamped by both the Transportation Committee and the full City Council without debate, and this latest motion appears on track to follow the same path.

Advocates and watchdog groups argue that LAMC 80.69.4 is a fundamentally flawed and cruel ordinance. Originally passed in 2006, the law enables councilmembers to carve out block-by-block “oversized vehicle restriction zones” with little oversight or accountability. There is no requirement for housing, services, or outreach, and no strategy to address the displacement these zones cause. There are 15 Safe Parking sites citywide, but none accept oversized vehicles. Those displaced by Park’s bans are simply pushed to nearby streets, only to face more ticketing, towing, and harassment.

This practice has drawn criticism from housing justice organizers and legal experts. According to an analysis by City Controller Kenneth Mejia, the city has created 1,367 OVO zones across Los Angeles, entirely at the discretion of individual councilmembers, with no metrics tracking their effectiveness. From 2018 to 2022, LADOT issued 6,191 citations and towed at least 149 RVs, while spending over $3.6 million on signage alone. Yet homelessness among vehicle dwellers has only worsened, with the number of people living in RVs increasing by 31% between 2020 and 2023.

Despite this, Park continues to champion 80.69.4 as a centerpiece of her approach to homelessness, alongside expanded CARE+ encampment sweeps and her “vanlord” crackdown targeting people who rent out RVs as shelter. Critics say it’s a politically convenient way to appear tough on homelessness without offering actual housing solutions, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass ruling, which gives cities broader legal cover to criminalize poverty and displacement.

“Traci Park is doing what this city has done for decades—using laws like 80.69.4 to hide homelessness instead of ending it,” said one local housing advocate. “This isn’t policy. It’s cruelty disguised as parking regulation.”