In the works for several years, Benton city officials have come to an agreement and drafted an ordinance in compliance with the 2003 Arkansas Affordable Housing Accessibility Act.
The ordinance outlines the city’s regulations regarding the location of manufactured housing within the city limits. Ordinance 22 of 1992 regulates the location of mobile homes within the city limits and because of changes with manufactured housing and with the passage of the Affordable Housing Accessibility Act, “it has become necessary to update the city’s regulations in order to provide affordable housing to residents of the city,” the proposed ordinance states.
“For quite some time there has been disagreement between city officials over whether we were in compliance with the act or not,” said Marsha Guffey, director of community development.
An ordinance drafted in 2005 failed when voted on by the City Council.
The issue surfaced again in 2006 when Guffey came to work for the city, she said.
The proposed ordinance seeks to bring the definitions of mobile home, manufactured home and modular home in line with state law, she said. “State law says, in a nutshell, that we are supposed to treat manufactured housing like any other form of stick-built housing, and allow it as a matter of right in at least one residential zone.
“Also, it was made simpler for three existing medical hardships [where manufactured housing structures were allowed in areas not zoned for such] to be renewed, but no provision was made for new medical hardships. Requirements for anchoring the manufactured homes were brought in line with state law, and we placed some quality restrictions on the manufactured homes that would be brought in.”
Guffey said that homes may still be placed in the Residential 1 4.0 zone with the proposed ordinance, but because the term “manufactured home” is now used rather than “manufactured dwelling,” the city is now in compliance.
The proposed manufactured housing district is primarily where manufactured and mobile homes already exist, Guffey said. These areas include east of River Street, south of the railroad tracks, through the Ralph Bunche Community, south of Silica Heights and west to the Benton city limits.
Guffey noted that because the R1 4.0 zone “is pretty tight” to actually place a manufactured home, “we added language to allow for manufactured overlay district where it can also be placed in the larger R1 7.5 zone if there are no restrictive covenants that prohibit it.”
She said if the ordinance is approved, procedures similar to rezoning procedures can be used to establish other manufactured housing overlay districts if the surrounding property owners agree.
This issue surfaced again, Guffey said, because of problems associated with a family’s medical mobile home hardship permit. A death in the family removed the medical hardship, therefore, the manufactured home should also have been removed, Guffey said. However, the family was resistant to moving.
Alderman Doug Stracener and former Alderman Leroy Allen sponsored an ordinance rezoning the family’s property to R1 4.0. Because some city officials contended that the ordinance would have allowed for the placement of manufactured housing, the ordinance failed.
Upon the request of numerous residents, the Community Development Department asked the City Council to allow the family a 90-day grace period to give community development a chance to draft an ordinance to solve the problems, Guffey said. In addition, the grace period was intended to “enable us to more objectively and humanely deal with all mobile and manufactured housing issues.”
That ordinance was shot down at a public hearing last year during which many Realtors and community leaders expressed opposition, Guffey said. She added that the Planning Commission “took issue with the proposed ordinance” as well.
After meeting with all the stakeholders several times to hash out some of the issues, Alderman Charles Cunningham chaired the committee that established the proposed ordinance. Guffey and Planning Commission Chairman George D. “Bucky” Ellis also were instrumental in drafting the ordinance.
“Because of all the other stuff going on in city government, this ordinance has just surfaced again,” Guffey said.
“The AG responded, basically, that it was not, which gave greater impetus to getting a new ordinance done,” Guffey said.
Ellis added that the “AG’s opinion was predicated on the assumption that manufactured dwelling and manufactured home were not necessarily the same thing. After the AG’s opinion was issued, the Planning Commission defined the terms to be synonymous, which in effect moots the AG’s opinion.”
Ellis noted that the Planning Commission has the authority under zoning ordinances to define ambiguous terms. “It’s my opinion, however, that we have always been in compliance with state law due to the wording of the zoning ordinance, particularly with respect to R1 4.0,” he said.
Stracener pointed out that the proposed ordinance is “not being originated by the City Council or the Planning Commission. It is in response to the actions of the General Assembly.”
In response to Ellis, he said, “If the Planning Commission understands that under our current zoning ordinance, manufactured dwellings are permissible within R1 4.0, then I agree with Mr. Ellis that this is unnecessary except that the current ordinance is light on legislation regarding tie-downs and the like.”
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