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Sponsor: Bevins (6th District)
Benefitted: Apparently the trailer park in Kingsville (5th District)
Redefines terms related to residential trailers and trailer parks and mobile home parks and permitting mobile home parks in ML.
This bill is puzzling. Why would anyone spend so much effort to redefine terms (when there are so many other areas of the BCZR that cry out for revision)? Considering how things have been going, I have to suspect that this was written by a lawyer for a mobile home park owner who slipped in some advantages for them, probably without even telling Bevins what the purpose or meaning was.
In June 2014, a Zoning Case (2014-0175-A) was held regarding some variances to allow a (shady) fortune teller to set up shop in Kingsville. Since the parcel also contains a small "trailer park", although such a use is not allowed in RC5, the question came up in the discussion, as the community sought a way to properly limit (or get rid of) this inappropriate use. The variances were granted, with the order noting that "this case does not concern the uses that exist on the property", but that the Peoples' Counsel "raises several good points" leaving it open for later actions, for example, the community could file for a Special Hearing to determine if the "grandfathered" use should be terminated because of this new propsed use.
The Peoples' Counsel appealed. Following discussions with the owner, the appeal was withdrawn/dismissed, with the order noting what the ALJ had said about possible future actions. Thus, the owner was left in a state of uncertainty, which largely involved the definition of "trailer park", "mobile home", etc., both as presently defined as well as how they were defined long ago. (The testimony indicated that the past use on which the current "grandfathering" was based was originally a camping trailer park.) In a previous case 1982-0280-SPHA the Zoning Commisioner denied the request for the "non-comforming use" as a "trailer camp", which the Board of Appeals then overturned.
(A big part of the community's concern about this matter is that they found that the intended occupant fortune teller had been run out of Indiana for fraud. See this article (scroll down to the last paragraph) and this one.)
Passed April 20, 2015
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