Madison, WI Parking Rules: RV & Boat Parking (2026)

141(10), "Restrictions on Residential Parking," part of the Chapter 28 Zoning Code's parking and loading standards, sets three separate rules for what can sit outdoors on a residential lot. First, subsection (a) allows at most one commercial vehicle per dwelling unit, and only if it is used by a resident, has a manufacturer's gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000 pounds or less, and is shorter than 21 feet, anything larger doesn't qualify no matter how it's used. Second, subsection (b) flatly prohibits parking or storing equipment "not normally associated with a residential use," listing examples including construction equipment such as bulldozers and backhoes, dump and stake-body trucks, cube vans, landscaping business equipment, semi-trailers and tractors, concession and catering trailers, commercial/industrial equipment trailers and lifts, tow trucks and wreckers, and limousines, this list applies regardless of the one-vehicle allowance in subsection (a).

Third, subsection (c) addresses recreational vehicles directly: a mobile RV tied to a residential use may be parked like an ordinary passenger vehicle, but it cannot be used as living space or for storing goods, materials, or equipment beyond what's essential to the RV itself, so a camper parked in a driveway can't double as a guest room or a shed. Subsection (d) closes the section with a maintenance and registration rule: every vehicle parked on a residential lot must display current license plates and be safe, functional, and operable, which reaches inoperable trailers and derelict boats left in yards even though boats aren't separately named the way RVs are. 141 through the zoning permit and complaint process rather than routine street patrol.