GOVERNMENT: MOBILE HOME OWNERS MAY FACE NEW LAWS

Carol Wilkinson lives just minutes from Wal-Mart, but in her mind, her home is light years from the city of Cape Girardeau.

She lives south of Route K on County Road 206 in a 14-year-old, single-wide, brown mobile home. She and her husband, Glen, have about 3 acres, the hilly ground dotted with trees and several gardens.

She has lived in the city before and decided she prefers the rural life, including the freedom county-dwellers have to put the kinds of homes they want wherever they want.

But Wilkinson worries that a proposal to implement planning and zoning in unincorporated areas of the county will bring unwanted regulation. She sees it as a possible obstacle to those who want to install mobile homes in the county's rural areas.

So a sign in her yard implores passers-by to vote "no" on county planning and zoning.

Voters will decide on Nov. 7 whether to authorize county planning. If it passes with a simple majority of the vote, the Cape Girardeau County Commission has said it plans to implement zoning as well.

Roger Arnzen, director of mapping and appraisal for the county, helped a temporary planning commission develop mobile home regulations. He said the plan is merely a guide to future development.

Even if voters approve planning next month, existing land uses will be allowed under a grandfather clause, officials said.

Regulations revisited

The mobile-home park regulations are largely the same as those that were in effect in the early 1990s, Arnzen said. They were voted out when voters rejected county zoning in 1992 and threw out planning as well.

The proposed master plan for development encourages mobile homes to be put in mobile home parks, but county officials insist they aren't trying to move mobile homes off the rural landscape.

A single mobile home would be treated no differently than a new house, they say. Like a house, a $50 permit would be needed to put a mobile home in rural Cape Girardeau County.

The proposed zoning regulations would allow no more than two mobile homes on a single tract of land on a farm and then only if they are used by farm hands or immediate members of the family.

Outside of agricultural zones, a conditional use permit would be needed to put more than one residence on a piece of property.

The proposed plan shows planning and zoning would impose a long list of restrictions on mobile-home parks. For one, the County Commission would have to grant a conditional use permit -- its cost still undetermined -- for any new mobile-home park to be developed in the county.

But written copies of the proposed mobile-home park regulations include some provisions that don't reflect the planning commission's current thinking, Arnzen said. For example, developers would have to submit plans for new mobile-home parks.

A developer would have to pay $150 to the county planning office when he files a development plan. Final review would cost the developer another $150 fee if the plan is approved by the county planning director, a position that would be created if planning and zoning is implemented.

The owner or developer of the mobile-home park also would have to obtain a three-year permit. Renewal permits would cost $50.

Uncertain plan

Of course, a permanent planning and zoning commission, to be established if the issue passes, doesn't have to conform to the proposed plan. They could write their own.

All the uncertainty concerns planning and zoning opponents like Wilkinson. She said she believes some people with expensive homes support planning and zoning because they see it as a way to keep mobile homes from going in next to them.

But Arnzen said there is nothing in the proposed regulations that would prevent mobile homes from being built adjacent to expensive houses.

Wilkinson remains unconvinced. She sees the proposed regulations as undesirable bureaucracy that tramples on property owners' rights.

She has circulated a petition against the ballot measure. She has collected 146 signatures of county residents within the last couple of weeks.

"I just feel this is our property and we should be able to do what we want with it," said Wilkinson. "I don't trust anybody who works for the government."

PLANS FOR MOBILE HOME PARKS

Proposed regulations for new mobile-home parks

- Developments would be limited to a maximum of eight mobile home lots per acre

- Lots would be at least 4,500 square feet in size with a minimum width of 45 feet.

- Minimum street widths would be imposed, ranging from 20 feet to 34 feet.

- Water, sewer and electrical connections would be regulated.

- Developments would have to have a landscaped strip of open space 50 feet wide between the property line and the rights of way of state and federal highways and county roads.

- Developments having at least 25 mobile homes would be required to have at least one park or outdoor recreational area of at least 2,500 square feet.

- Swimming pools would have to meet county health department standards.

Source: Cape Girardeau County mobile-home park plan