Taylorsville may protect mobile homes

TAYLORSVILLE — Norma Olson's mobile home could be sitting on top of a gold mine of commercial revenue, but to Taylorsville city officials, that's irrelevant.

What's more important to the city is that Olson, who lives in one of Taylorsville's three mobile home parks, has a place to live. That's why, at the risk of losing millions of potential commercial development dollars, the City Council is considering rezoning the Majestic Meadows, Majestic Oaks and Monte Vista neighborhoods as mobile home communities and adding an ordinance that would make it harder to displace the 1,000-unit neighborhood.

"These mobile home communities sit on valuable land, and there's always the option for the land owner to put his property up for sale," Mayor Russ Wall said. "We want to try and find a way to protect the property rights interests of both the homeowners and the property owners. We feel this is the first step."

The mobile homes are currently grouped together in a part of the city that is zoned for multifamily residential use. If the city rezones the area to be specifically for mobile homes and a developer wanted to build something else on the land, then the developer would have to go through a zone changing process with the city.

None of the park owners have told the city they intend to sell their land, but Wall said the discussion is an offensive effort to get the ball rolling before it becomes an issue. Plans for the ordinance are still in the early stages, and it may be months before the City Council makes a decision on whether or not it should be adopted.

If the city passes the new ordinance, developers might be required to help move the mobile home park residents to a new location in order to obtain the zone change. In some cases, that task might be difficult because mobile homes that were built before 1976 cannot be moved.

Wall said he worries about what will happen to the community because a number of mobile home parks in Utah have closed over the years. In 2006, one park in Cottonwood Heights was sold to developers, sending its residents packing. A similar situation happened in Orem in 2003.

"Our concern is we have a very vulnerable population over there," said Community Development Director Mark McGrath. "We're afraid that something like what happened in Cottonwood Heights will happen over there, and the property owner will sell the land and the developer will come and kick everyone out."