West Des Moines, IA Parking Rules: RV & Boat Parking (2026)

West Des Moines City Code section 9-15-4(B)(1), part of the Off-Street Parking and Loading chapter of the Zoning Title, sets the surface standard for recreational vehicles and trailers kept on residential property. Unlike ordinary passenger vehicles, which the same subsection requires to sit entirely on paved surfaces, RVs and trailers only need a hard surface other than gravel under the parts of the vehicle that actually touch the ground; the rest of the unit can overhang grass or landscaping. That hard surface must be strong enough to support the weight of the RV or trailer in question, and it must sit on private property, immediately adjacent to the homeowner's existing driveway, garage, or alley access; an RV or trailer cannot simply be dropped on a lawn away from those features.

This City provision also independently bars using the strip of City right-of-way between the property line and the street for any vehicle parking, RV or otherwise. Development Services and code enforcement staff, who administer Title 9 zoning, treat noncompliance as a zoning violation subject to Title 1's municipal infraction process rather than a criminal charge. The rule ties into the separate section 9-5-4(E)(3) limit letting a recreational vehicle be used for guest sleeping only up to 30 non-consecutive days a year while parked in conformance with these same location rules, and it works alongside the chapter's requirement that ordinary vehicles be fully paved on all four sides.