Decatur, GA Parking Rules: RV & Boat Parking (2026)

Sec. A of Decatur's Unified Development Ordinance regulates where a trailer, mobile home, travel trailer, pickup coach, motorized home, boat, boat trailer or utility trailer can be parked or stored. The baseline rule makes it unlawful to park or store any of these on a street, alley, public place, or any tract of land in the City except as the article allows. The residential exception follows: a unit no wider than 8 feet, weighing no more than 4,500 pounds, and no longer than 30 feet may be parked or stored on private residential property.

If it's kept outside a fully enclosed garage, it must sit to the rear of the front building line and at least 20 feet from any rear lot line, and on a corner lot, within the building restriction lines of both streets. Occupying the unit for living, sleeping or housekeeping is barred outright. The code allows two narrow exceptions to the placement rule: the unit may sit anywhere on the property for loading or unloading if that's finished within 8 hours, and emergency or temporary stopping on a public street is allowed for up to one hour, except while actually loading or unloading.

Pickup coaches get a longer allowance of up to 6 hours on a street. A unit that exceeds the 8-foot/4,500-pound/30-foot dimensions can't be parked anywhere in the City except in a commercially zoned district, where it may only be used as an accessory structure and must still follow the same rear-yard and setback placement rules that apply on residential lots. These are City of Decatur rules in DeKalb County; a property with a Decatur mailing address that actually sits in unincorporated DeKalb County follows the county's separate parking standards instead.