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Plan nettles mobile home owners
By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer INGLIS -- Few people noticed 10 years ago when officials here, seeking to fatten the tax base, approved a plan to ban mobile homes from the most desirable areas in town. "It's just like a wildfire. We had mobile homes all over," Mayor Carolyn Risher said. "We were just trying to get some control." With County Road 40 effectively serving as a divide between the haves and have-nots, land to the south, near the Withlacoochee River, was set aside for modular or site-built homes. Mobiles were steered north to a sprawling subdivision called Cason Acres that, even today, is mostly connected by dirt roads. Only recently have the details and consequences of the rezoning emerged. Town officials concede the plan does not seem as simple as it did in 1992, when it was assumed nonconforming mobile homes would succumb to old age in 20 years. The owners of more than 100 mobiles, which must be moved or demolished by 2012 if the rule stands, feel angry and hopeless. "We're being squeezed out," said 68-year-old Tom O'Dell, standing before his light blue double-wide last week. O'Dell, who has lost both kidneys to disease, wants to move near his son and daughter in Port Charlotte so he can get proper medical attention. "Two years ago, people were fighting over this house," he said. "Nobody will buy it now because it's embroiled in this mess. "We're being told that we're not entitled to live the way we want to," O'Dell said. "If that isn't segregation, I don't know what is." At the same time, people who bought property thinking the mobile home next door or down the street would be gone one day insist their rights also be considered. They say they are shouldering a disproportionate share of the town's budget, which grows each year with demands for better public services. After taking the standard $25,000 homestead exemption, most mobile home owners pay only a few hundred dollars in property tax. O'Dell pays $240 for his home, which is assessed at $32,000. "But," he quickly added, "I pay all types of other taxes, and I buy products in town." While some see the situation as newcomers trying to assert control and reinforcing stereotypes about mobile home owners, others portray it as a necessary transition. "This is not the good guys vs. the bad," said Town Commissioner Gene Kiger, who owns a house on the river. "It's about change in the community. "A lot of people who came here 30 years ago came because there weren't any rules. Now things are moving into a more sophisticated arrangement. We have to have controlled growth." Kiger said some people on the river have indicated they will sue if necessary. "You won't have angry crowds at commission meetings, you'll have lawyers." All of this has left town officials struggling to find middle ground. One proposal calls for grandfathering all homes in place before 1992. (The town has never done a survey to determine how many fit in that category.) Owners could sell their mobiles or will them to their relatives, but then the clause wouldn't apply, and the homes would have to be gone by 2012. A more liberal plan calls for grandfathering all homes that exist on Jan. 1, 2003; still another would do away with the sunset provision altogether, in favor of tougher code enforcement and attrition. "I really think we have an answer here," planning commission member Bob Allen said. "But it's not going to be totally satisfactory to mobile home owners or the people on the other side of the debate." 'They do things and don't tell anybody about it'In the meantime, a sense of desperation and confusion abounds. At least three people showed up at Town Hall Thursday night to protest the changes only to learn their mobile homes would be unaffected. "A lot of the problem starts right behind that closed door," real estate agent Helen Green said, pointing to the administrative offices. "They do things and don't tell anybody about it." Mayor Risher was on the committee that passed the zoning changes, part of a comprehensive plan amendment drafted for the town by the Withlacoochee Regional Planning Council. The planner no longer works there and could not be reached. "They just rushed it in and said we had to approve it or we would lose all our state funding," Risher said. "Now it's coming back to haunt us." It seemed to make sense at the time. Mobile homes are not known for structural integrity, so the belief was those around in 1992 would be gone in 20 years. To ensure that was the case, modifications to mobile homes after 1997 were limited to maintenance, such as fixing a leaking roof. If more than half of a home was damaged in a storm, it could not be replaced. Today it is clear the architects of the 1992 provision underestimated the shelf life of a mobile home, even if illegal improvements are taken into account. While there are many rundown mobile homes in Inglis, scores appear in fine shape. Not only longtime residents feel pinched by the town's experiment with economic engineering. Consider Nelson and Barbara Arnold. Last summer, they emptied their savings and bought a brown-trimmed mobile home on Park Street. "We put everything we had into this place," said Mrs. Arnold, 56, a New Hampshire native. They were not rich but not poor, a middle class couple attracted to a small town lifestyle, inexpensive land and low property taxes. But with teenagers racing cars down the street and playing stereos at full blast, the Arnolds soon grew disillusioned and put their home on the market. A real estate agent said she would list the home for $40,000, $10,000 more than they paid. She also said it would be a tough sell given the 1992 comprehensive plan amendment. The what? No one told the Arnolds about the zoning ordinance when they signed the deed, neither the real estate agent nor the title company. "This is the first we're hearing about it," said Harry Eck of ERA Suncoast Realty. Amid the finger pointing, it turns out the town never recorded the change in official Levy County records, a foolproof way to ensure every nonconforming mobile home is flagged. "We feel like we've been taken," Mrs. Arnold said. "We would have never bought this place." Frustrated by restrictions, trying to force a changeThought it has reached a high this summer, the controversy in this village of 1,500 began two years ago when a man stopped by Town Hall to get a permit for an addition to his mobile home. Bill Sinopoli, the code enforcement officer, rejected the request, citing the ordinance that prohibits enhancements of nonconforming structures. The homeowner, Richard Dreblow, who suffers from a herniated disc, wanted to build a room for a whirlpool and exercise equipment. "We can't afford to go to the doctor for therapy," said his wife, Linda. "My husband says before they tear down our home, he'll burn it to the ground. We're ready to get a Winnebago and move out." The couple replaced their old mobile home with a new one in 1993, a year after the comprehensive plan amendment was approved. "We were never notified," Dreblow said. She has written letters to Gov. Jeb Bush, state Rep. Nancy Argenziano and even the American Civil Liberties Union, but received little response. "I really can't understand people who come into our tiny fishing community," she wrote in a June e-mail to Bush. "They love the people and our way of living. Yet after they get here, they talk about how ignorant we are and how we are behind the times and call us names like 'trailer trash' and tell us to move." -- Alex Leary can be reached at (352) 564-3623 or leary@sptimes.com.
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