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Hialeah board narrows 60‑day warning to recreational vehicles, leaves commercial vehicle rules intact
Summary
The planning board approved an amendment clarifying that the ordinance's 60‑day warning applies only to recreational vehicles, not commercial vehicles, citing a drafting placement error; code enforcement will continue to address commercial vehicles under existing rules.
The Hialeah Planning & Zoning Board on Sept. 10 approved an amendment to Chapter 98 of the city code that clarifies the 60‑day warning period is intended for recreational vehicles, not for commercial vehicles, code language that had been read to apply more broadly.
Assistant City Attorney Samantha Knapp told the board the earlier draft placed the 60‑day warning provision in a subsection that was being interpreted to cover all vehicle types in the section — including commercial trucks and boats — which was not the original intent. "So we're now...amend[ing] that so it only applies to the RVs and not also commercial vehicles," Knapp said during the hearing.
Board members asked whether any substantive regulatory change was occurring beyond the relocation of the warning language. Staff and legal counsel answered that the amendment does not alter prohibitions on parking commercial vehicles in residential zones and that the change simply fixes a drafting error so that the warning applies only to RVs (e.g., unregistered or oversized recreational vehicles) and not to vehicles already prohibited as commercial uses.
Questions from the board included whether the RV registration system was fully implemented and how enforcement is proceeding. Staff said code enforcement has been issuing citations where appropriate, that registration is "very much in force" and that many residents have come in to register RVs since the rule was introduced. The board recorded no change to the substantive restrictions (for example, no RV parking in swales, front/side requirements, or vehicle length limits), only to the placement of the warning provision in the code's structure.
The board voted to approve the clarifying amendment; staff said it will publish the corrected language and continue enforcement under the clarified rule.
Why it matters
The change resolves a drafting ambiguity that residents had cited when they received notices for vehicle violations. By moving the 60‑day warning explicitly under the RV subsection instead of a general subsection, the city intends to reserve immediate violation enforcement for commercial vehicles while offering a 60‑day remediation window for RV cases that meet the criteria.
What comes next
Staff and the city attorney will finalize the ordinance language and publish the correction. Code enforcement will continue to process complaints under the clarified standard.
