Published: May 29, 2009 12:38 pm      

County mobile home park restrictions

Mobile home park regulations in Rowan County will soon become stricter, according to members of the Rowan County Fiscal Court.

“Where a lot of your larger counties will go ten to 20 acres, we were going three to ten acres,” Judge Executive Jim Nickell said in an interview. “Four mobile homes per park, where they’re not crammed in together where ambulances, fire trucks and emergency personnel can get in and to make sure (the parks) look nice in the community.”

The court discussed the county’s mobile home park planning regulation review during this month’s meeting on May 19.

Joe Parson, with the Joint Planning Commission for the City of Morehead and Rowan County and Lakeview Heights, was present for the meeting.

“This isn’t going to touch your old mobile home parks,” Parsonsaid. “They’ve been grandfathered in.”

Judge Nickell reminded members of the court that the agenda called for them to come up with suggestions for the planning commission to review. Once the commission has reviewed those suggestions, it will submit its recommendations back to the court.

Nick Caudill, magistrate for District Four, shifted the court’s discussion to the definition of a mobile home park.

“I don’t want a regulation so stiff that Mom and Pop’s got a 20 acre farm and they can’t allow their children to put a mobile home on their property,” Caudill said.

Judge Nickell said he did not believe the family farm would be affected by the new rules. He asked Joe Parson, who was present for the meeting, what he thought.

“We’re not getting into the family farm,” Parson said. “I understand what you’re saying. I’d say you’d have to build it into your regulations and specify,” Parson said. “The full intent was to keep people from just slopping (mobile home parks) in and leaving everything a mess for you all to take care of and the taxpayers to so spend their money on.”

Danny Blevins, EMS director, told the court his crew has trouble with finding the correct mobile home in emergency situations because many parks are not labeled and trailers do not have assigned numbers.

“We try to address that mainly through education but we can’t force someone to put numbers that we assign them on their property,” Ray White, magistrate for District One, said.

“We’re not saying we’re against manufactured housing or mobile home parks,” Nickell said. “It’s just that we need to make some regulations to make sure they get put in right.”

The planning commission will review the court’s recommendations at a regular session meeting.