MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – The crackdown on RVs as rented residences could go beyond Hialeah. Residents of the Richmond Heights area of southwest Miami-Dade held a bus tour Thursday to show local officials the sheer number of questionable campers in neighborhood yards.
“It’s not acceptable in other communities,” pastor Alphonso Jackson Sr. said. “Why should it be acceptable in our community?”
While it may be an enterprising way to create affordable housing, it’s against code.
Residents said they were spurred to take action after seeing Local 10′s reporting about Hialeah’s plan to enforce rules targeting RVs used as rental homes.
Two buses took residents and officials around the area. Residents pointed out RVs with electrical hookups and concrete slabs — clear signs that they were being lived in.
“We’re concerned about the illegal rental thing, the black market rental that’s going on in Richmond Heights,” resident Irma Weathers said.
Residents said they worry about the safety and values in their tight-knit neighborhood — borne as the first community for Black soldiers returning from World War II.
“‘Oh, I’m going to just add RV I’m going to live in that.’ We cannot have that,” resident Arsimmer Wilder-McCoy said. “That is not a part of our makeup.”
Two residences Local 10 News stopped at appeared to be using RVs as rentals. The homeowners didn’t want to say much.
The neighbors who took officials on a tour appear to have gotten at least one elected leader on board.
“It’s devaluing this community but it’s also removing the dignity,” Miami-Dade District 9 Commissioner Kionne McGhee said.
McGhee got code inspectors involved. The county permits one RV per property, with parameters: They must be registered and for travel purposes only.