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A proposal to keep modular and manufactured homes from traditional Zephyrhills neighborhoods surrounding downtown could face a stiff test in court.
By CHASE SQUIRES, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 20, 2002
ZEPHYRHILLS -- If the City Council approves a proposal Monday night, a house in the city's traditional neighborhoods will have to be built, not manufactured.
City planner Todd Vande Berg is scheduled to bring before the council a recommendation approved this week by the Planning Commission that would immediately ban manufactured and modular homes from the traditional neighborhoods surrounding downtown. Eventually, the Planning Commission wants a zoning change that would permanently ban such homes.
"There have been a few vacant, undeveloped lots in the city where people have put manufactured or modular homes," Vande Berg said Friday. "There's a whole lot of different varieties of those types of homes, but a lot of those varieties have started looking like a standard mobile home."
City Attorney Tom McCalvanah said he will have a full review of the matter ready for Monday's 6 p.m. meeting at City Hall. But at first glance, he said, the council may be heading into a fight it cannot win.
"The law is you can't discriminate against modular or manufactured homes as long as you put them on a slab," McCalvanah said. "My inclination is no, you can't do this."
If a home falls under the designation of modular or manufactured as prescribed by law, it can go in any residential district, provided it is anchored on a permanent slab or on a permanent, mortared block foundation, he said.
San Antonio went through a similar battle for two years starting in 1998 in a bid to ban mobile homes from the city. In the end, the city was satisfied with a 2000 federal ruling that defined a mobile home but recognized that manufactured homes that meet local building codes and are permanently attached to a foundation are allowed.
Vande Berg said the Planning Commission's recommendation is not against moderately priced housing, but many of the simpler models just don't belong in a traditional neighborhood of site-built homes, he said.
Vande Berg said the town has many areas zoned for mobile homes.
The area where Vande Berg said the commission wants to ban modular and manufactured housing runs from South Avenue to North Avenue, and from First to 20th streets.
"We're making strides to redevelop our downtown and the surrounding areas," Vande Berg said. "We feel like there ought to be some standards."