JACKSON COUNCIL WANTS MOBILE HOME REGULATIONS

JACKSON -- A proposed ordinance governing mobile home zoning and mobile home regulations is aimed at protecting the City of Jackson in future annexations.

The city currently has no ordinance regulating mobile home parks in place. Besides a few locations where three or four trailers are set up, the only mobile home park in the city is Barks Trailer Court at Route D and Farmington Road.

The absence of a regulation prompts the growing city's concern about being forced someday to accept a mobile home park that may have been poorly built outside the city limits.

"If we didn't have regulations in the city and someone put a mobile home park just outside, they could do whatever they wanted," Mayor Paul Sander said. "... Then we may be forced to grandfather something that's less than desirable."

The ordinance would grandfather in Jackson's existing mobile homes.

The proposed ordinance, which will be discussed at the Nov. 3 meeting of the Board of Aldermen, establishes a mobile home park zone and prohibits recreational vehicle parks within the city.

It also sets a minimum size of five acres for each park. No more than eight lots per acre would be allowed.

Mobile home parks also would be required to provide a buffer or screen to visually screen them from adjacent property.

The ordinance also sets standards for street design, off-street parking, recreational facilities and yards.

Provisions are made for licensing and inspection of mobile home parks, for sewer collection and water supply, for storm drainage and erosion control.

Penalties for violation of the ordinance range from fines of $10 to $500.

A committee headed by Alderman Kerry Hoffman began assembling the regulations in July. Other members were City Attorney Dave Beeson, City Administrator Steve Wilson, Public Works employee Rodney Bollinger and Brian Ballsman of the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning Commission.

They solicited mobile home ordinances throughout the U.S. and also studied the ordinances in Cape Girardeau, Pevely and Perryville, along with the Missouri Municipal League recommendations.

"We had three different drafts and it improved as we went," Hoffman said.

The committee also studied two highly regarded mobile home parks in Fruitland. Feedback they received led them to make the lots a minimum of 4,500 square feet, which is larger than the standard lots they had studied elsewhere.

"And that's just a minimum," Hoffman said. "If the developer wants to make it larger he certainly can.

He said mobile home parks in Florida that incorporate trees and flowers into their design impressed the committee. "We want the state of the art," he said.

Sander likes the proposed ordinance. "I think it's pretty well put together," he said. "It protects residential neighborhood and provides a setting that would be desirable."