Ames, IA Parking Rules: RV & Boat Parking (2026)

Ames Municipal Code Sec. 29.304(3)(a)(iii) bars outside storage of recreational vehicles, boats, mobile homes, trailers and semitrailers in every zone, on public or private land, unless a use table or another exception applies, or the storage is incidental to ongoing construction on the site. The zoning ordinance carves out a residential exception: one unoccupied recreational vehicle, boat, or trailer is permitted to be stored accessory to a residential use, but only in the rear yard or wholly within the side yard of the lot, never the front.

That storage remains subject to all parking area and driveway standards of Sec. 29.406, which governs where paved parking surfaces and driveways may sit on a residential lot. A parallel provision in the same subsection allows one junked vehicle stored outdoors under the same 29.406 parking and driveway standards, but that is a distinct allowance from the RV/boat exception and does not increase the one-unit cap for recreational vehicles or boats. The Public Nuisances chapter reinforces this standard: Sec. 30.5(22) separately declares travel trailers, RVs, boats or boat trailers a nuisance when they are not in compliance with Sec. 29.304(3) or the required-spaces standard of Sec. 29.406(5), giving code enforcement a nuisance-abatement path in addition to standard zoning enforcement.