By LEE HINNANT

Even as county commissioners consider adopting the first set of rules for subdivisions, work is well under way on a comprehensive set of new rules that would regulate manufactured and mobile homes, including existing mobile home parks.

County staff has drafted a 90-page manufactured housing park ordinance that is in the first stages of review. The county’s Planning Board will take up the draft rules during its August 10 meeting.

As proposed, the rules would impose significant new requirements for manufactured and mobile home parks, manufactured home subdivisions and the placement of manufactured and mobile homes on private lots.

Park operators would be required to obtain a license, valid for one year, that would be issued only after county staff reviewed the site plan and verified that the park meets requirements. Owners would be given 30 days to correct violations.

County Planner Stevie Cox said that existing parks that don’t meet the requirements and that cannot meet the new rules due to a lack of land, for example, would be considered “non-conforming uses.” If a “non-conforming” mobile home stopped being rented for six months or was significantly damaged, it would have to be removed, he said.

As proposed, no one could install or relocate a mobile home more than 15 years old. All used homes must meet state building code standards. People would not be allowed to live in recreational vehicles, nor attach them to utilities, except in designated recreational vehicle parks.

Within mobile home parks, only homes used as single-family dwellings would be allowed. Each unit must have a complete and continuous skirting made of an approved, non-flammable material.

Stairs, porches and ramps must be installed according to the state building code and securely anchored to the ground. Wooden stairs may be used only in conjunction with a porch or entrance platform that covers at least 24 square feet. The use of wooden stairs only at any entrance is prohibited.

All new or used mobile homes must have working smoke detectors.

In general, access roads serving four or fewer units may be constructed of compacted crush-and-run gravel. Roads serving more lots and roads needed for garbage pick-up and mail service must be paved to state standards. All private roads must be illuminated at night.

Each unit must have two designated parking spaces and those spaces may not be part of a public or private road. Owners cannot allow the parking of abandoned or disabled vehicles in the development. Boats, trailers or other recreation or storage vehicles shall not be stored or parked on public roads, private roads, entrances, required parking spaces, visitor parking spaces or on manufactured home spaces. If boats and trailers are allowed, the park operator must provide a separate, enclosed area for them.

Parks with four or fewer spaces may use individual garbage cans. Parks with five or more units must provide dumpsters in approved areas.

Any development located within 300 feet of a public water system must connect to that system.

The proposal also calls for park operators to provide a play lot for pre-school children with a minimum of 1,200 square feet of space that is located within 500 feet of every dwelling.

No one may construct a new park or add to an existing one without site plan approval from the county. Commercial operations, other than a business office and laundry, would be prohibited at manufactured home parks. The parks could not be sold unless they meet water and sewer standards. The minimum size for a park would be 10 acres and the minimum lot size for parks without public water and sewer would be 40,000 square feet.

Each lot in a park would have to be graded, compacted and include a hard-surface patio covering at least 240 square feet. Weeds and grass must not exceed 12 inches.