P&Z TO CONSIDER MOBILE-HOME ISSUES

When, if ever, should the city of Cape Girardeau allow mobile homes outside of mobile home parks?

The Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a special study session on that subject at 5 p.m. today in the city council chambers.

Two weeks ago the commission voted against allowing George and Lora Lee Eaker to put a double-wide mobile home on land they own on Vincent Park Drive. Last year the city council turned down an application for a mobile home on Cape Rock Drive.

Eaker contends that his home would be as nice as the surrounding homes. "We can't afford to spend $100,000 on a house," Eaker said. "I want to put in a decent home. I want a medium-priced home."

Eaker wants to do what Tom Pikey did in Scott City. Last year, Pikey moved in to a newly erected double-wide mobile home at the corner of Fornfelt and Rosecon streets in a neighborhood of conventional homes.

The home with its vinyl siding and shingled roof sits on a brick foundation with concrete steps leading up to the front and back doors. Inside, the home has plaster walls and ceilings with wood trim.

His neighbors in a 20-plus-year-old frame home across Fornfelt, Ida and Jerry Givens, even helped him build the foundation.

"I don't mind a double-wide," Givens said. "Double-wides look just like a home. He's got that one fixed up real nice."

Under the current Cape Girardeau city code, individuals may put a mobile home in any zoning if they can convince the city council to grant them a special-use permit. The council can deny a special-use permit if it would, in their judgment, "adversely affect the character of the neighborhood" or "adversely affect the general welfare of the community," according to the city code.

R.J. McKinney, chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission, said the language needs to be more specific. He said the current practice is to reject any application for a mobile home if it is "in a residential area with nothing but residences around it."

Why? "Because the neighbors object to it," McKinney said. He said that if the city gave permission to one in one neighborhood, "then the next time, if someone wanted to put a mobile home in a subdivision with $150,000 to $200,000 homes, then we couldn't stop it."

McKinney added that city inspectors can't inspect mobile homes the way they can homes built on site.

Under federal law, inspectors from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development inspect mobile homes at the factories when they are built and put a seal on them when they pass inspection. Cities and states may not inspect mobile homes themselves.

For example, a city inspector normally checks a house's wiring before the wall is completed. The inspector would have to tear a mobile home's wall apart to look at its wiring.

The federal code works differently than the BOCA code used by the city, said James Phillips, who is in charge of regulating mobile homes for the Missouri Public Service Commission.

The BOCA code is prescriptive, meaning that it says what size stud must be spaced what distance apart to hold up a roof. The HUD code is performance-based; it says a roof must be able to support a certain weight.

Cape Girardeau city planner Kent Bratton said that even with the HUD code, mobile homes are not built as well as conventionally built homes.

Joyce Baker, executive director of the Missouri Manufactured Homes Association, disagrees. She said that the performance-based code allows designers greater flexibility in meeting standards.

But she concedes that since high-quality mobile homes are relatively new, there is no proof that a top-of-the-line mobile home will stand up for 50 years as well as a site-built home.

McKinney said that if a brand-new mobile home is as good as a site-built home, there has to be a way of excluding older mobile homes from residential areas.

In addition, McKinney said, the city must find a way to clearly delineate the difference between mobile homes and other kinds of manufactured housing.

Members of public may add their input to the discussion tonight at the meeting.