Zoning bill draws fire from county officials

Kiley Russell

Friday, April 30, 1999 | 9:17 a.m.

CARSON CITY - County planning officials are attacking a bill to allow manufactured homes in regular residential neighborhoods, arguing that zoning decisions should be left to local governments.

The bill would force local governments to treat manufactured homes built after Jan. 1, 1996, as regular "site-built" homes in zoning regulations.

But David Fulstone, a commissioner in mobile home-rich Lyon County, told the Assembly Government Affairs Committee on Thursday that the bill subverts his county's land use plan.

"For Lyon County, this will be a step back. We've approved many mobile home parks, subdivisions and sites," Fulstone said, adding that half the houses in Lyon County are manufactured.

"We need to let county and community planing commissions do their jobs," he added.

Former Carson City planning commissioner Deborah Uhart said she is afraid that because manufactured homes are often considerably less expensive than site-built homes, an influx of manufactured homes into a neighborhood could lower property values.

But the bill's supporters say that modern manufactured houses are high quality and don't deserve a "trailer trash" reputation.

Government Affairs Chairman Doug Bache, D-Las Vegas, said that keeping someone out of a neighborhood because they want to live in a manufactured home is akin to housing discrimination faced by minorities.

"This bill allows someone who choses to buy a manufactured home that's just as nice as any other home the freedom to place that home on land that they buy," said the bill's co-sponsor, Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas.

Buckley added she has fielded several complaints from constituents about their inability to get out from under the rising costs of mobile home park rents and move to a lot of their own.

She also said the bill allows local governments to establish standards for what kind of manufactured homes are allowed in residential neighborhoods, adding, "We do not want poorly designed homes to go into any neighborhood."