Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 31, 1995 TAG: 9505310065
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
But the move may put the pinch on rural landowners who want to place more than two homes - either trailers or conventional ones - on their agriculturally zoned land, such as for family members. A public hearing is scheduled June 26.
County government planners are proposing the step, which will require the Board of Supervisors' approval, in response to a change in state law that takes effect July 1.
That change will prohibit counties, towns and cities from targeting single-wide mobile homes for special restrictions in land that is zoned agricultural, such as much of Montgomery County outside of Christiansburg and Blacksburg.
Now, rural Montgomery landowners with large parcels of land may build as many homes as they like as long as they reserve a half-acre per structure. However, if the same landowners wanted to put mobile homes on their tracts, single- or double-wide models, they would be limited to a maximum of two, as long as the second one was for a member of their immediate families.
The proposed county ordinance change would not affect landowners subdividing their land: that would still be handled under the subdivision ordinance. The change also is unrelated to a proposal the Board of Supervisors rejected last fall that would have required homes in agricultural districts to be built on lots no smaller than 20 acres.
Instead, it's a reaction to the state-law change that makes the placement of trailers, called manufactured homes by the industry that builds them, subject to the same development standards applied to conventional site-built homes.
Because Montgomery County's current standard for the number of site-built homes on an agricultural parcel is so broad, the county planning staff has proposed narrowing the standard for all types of "dwelling units."
"Unless we limit the number of uses in an agricultural zone, we can have de facto mobile home parks without having any controls," said Jeff Rice, an assistant county planner.
"It may be that there are better ways of handling this," said his boss, Planning Director Joe Powers. "For right now, this looked like a logical way."
A spokesman for the Virginia Manufactured Housing Association, an industry lobbying group, said he hadn't heard of the Montgomery proposal but didn't see anything in it at first description that would be objectionable.
"We have never asked for anything more than any other form of housing," said Ron Dunlap, executive director. "As long as we're treated equally is all we're concerned about."
He said some local governments are rewriting their entire zoning ordinances or changing the names of agricultural districts in reaction to the state law change. In some cases, the association may go to court if it perceives that the intent is to continue to discriminate against mobile homes.
"All this is is an equality law," Dunlap said. "I can't understand why some localities are fighting it so much."
Christiansburg, which restricts single-wide trailers to mobile home parks only, has little agriculturally zoned land that's suitable for building. However, the town's Planning Commission is studying the state law change, said Rudy Rash, town planner.
Neighboring Roanoke County, which has a more restrictive ordinance regarding single-wide trailers than Montgomery, also is considering a change. Its Planning Commission is drafting a proposal that is to go to the Board of Supervisors in June.
Blacksburg's planning officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
by CNB