Commission OKs changes to codes for mobile homes

The Forrest City Planning Commission on Thursday voted in favor of making recommendations to the city council to allow for changes in lot sizes and setback requirements for the city’s mobile home parks.

Commission Chairman Ben Wynne did not attend the meeting.

Commissioner Rob Lemke said a partnership recently began working to revive the mobile home park in Stuart Springs and is seeking permission to place tiny houses on the lots in that area.

"I think the object of this meeting is to make some reconsiderations to mobile homes and tiny homes in R-5 zoned areas," said Lemke. "Right now, R-5 only covers mobile homes, not tiny homes.”

James Tracy, a co-owner of the property, told commissioner they already have interest from potential renters for that area, but they want to get city approval first.

"Right now, we are just working to get it cleaned up, and it has a lot of little problems that we are trying to get straightened out," said Tracy. “We have some people wanting to rent right now. We have been buying up some trailers so that we can have some type of income coming in. In the future, our plan is to put tiny houses on those lots, but we want to get the approval to do so first. We want to start in the top corner closest to the park and work our way around.

"Eventually, we want to make it one of the smaller tiny home parks,” continued Tracy. “It will be a several year project, but a lot of people are looking to move into a smaller area these days and they are very popular with older people."

According to Lemke, in addition to the variance minimums that are already set, there may also be limits in regard to utilities and fire codes.

"I think right now, these manufactured home lots have a minimum of 4,000 square feet," said Lemke. "This reconsideration is to take the minimum down to 1,500 or 2,000 square foot lots. We would have to approve some variances on these minimum requirements for a bigger structure if you are going to a smaller one. Then there might be other limits to that as well for fire, sewer, water and electricity. I don't know all of the ins and outs of the utilities or fire responsibilities and accessibility."

Forrest City Fire Chief Shane Dallas told the commission that on the fire side of things, the FCFD did not have any issues with a 2,000-square-foot lot for a tiny home.

"They are substantially smaller than a mobile home,” said Dallas. “For water and sewer, they have agreed to go all the way back to the mains and sewer taps and redo what the RV people came in and did to make sure it is all right. His partner is a master plumber."

"That is pretty much it on that," said Forrest City Water Utility Director Edward Gregory. "In regards to 1,500 or 2,000 lots. The only thing with that for water and sewer is if you make the lot size smaller or you allow them to be smaller, then you open up the possibility of having two locations on the lots. We can allow these smaller lots, but I would recommend only allowing one unit per roadside frontage."

"We also have ordinances that have setback variances that show you have to be so far from the property lines," said Dallas. "Fire code show that they have to be separated so far from each other where fire will not spread from one building to the other. If each unit has a front and back yard of 10 feet, it would be a total of 20 feet between structures."

Lemke said that due to the land being owned by one entity, the lots can be laid out however they would like to lay them out.

"If one entity owns all of that land, then you can throw out the idea of predetermined lots," said Lemke. "They can make their lot however, as long as they are in code. I assume you would have to have a separate sewer tap and meter for each house because a different person would be in each unit. That cost would be on y'all to pay the city to have that put in."

"We told them we would go in and put those in ourselves and take that cost," said Tracy.

"Are y'all going back in there or are all of these units going to be where you drive now," asked Lemke.

"They will be on the same lots that the trailers sat on when they were there," said Tracy.

According to Lemke, the group would need to include all other mobile home parks within the city’s limits when making motions and recommendations.

"There is no mention of tiny homes in any ordinance we have," said Lemke. "I would like to make the motion that we reduce the lot square footage for a tiny home in any mobile home park in Forrest City from 4,000 to 2,000 square feet."

“Do we have a definition of what constitutes a tiny home?” asked Dallas. "It's not just going to be a shed that somebody moves into. We want it to be something that is designed for habitation."

"A tiny house is defined as a modular home," said Forrest City Code Enforcement Officer Chris Ray. "It's not going to be a shed. It is classified as a modularly-built home and there are specs that have to be met when building one. We can add this definition to what we have here. It has to have running water and electricity hooked up."

"I would also like to make the motion that we reduce the setback of the tiny homes in mobile home parks in Forrest City from 20 to 10 feet," said Lemke.

The commission unanimously voted in favor of forwarding their recommendations to the full council for consideration.