City officials in North Platte, Nebraska are reaching out to owners of manufactured home communities (MHCs) in developing minimum standards for manufactured homes, realizing that some people are bringing substandard homes into the city and then abandoning them instead of fixing them up. Zoning administrator Judy Clark says a Health Impact Assessment Committee discovered homes with holes in the walls, mold on the ceiling and floors falling in, with people living in them. MHProNews.com has learned the city can only inspect multiple-family dwellings and not single-family homes under current ordinances.

Building inspector Norm Franken says the city does not have the authority to demolish trashed, abandoned homes, according to northplattebulletin.com. At a city council meeting MHC owners objected to one rule regulating the size of homesites, which was then subsequently changed. City Administrator Jim Hawks held a meeting with several community owners Feb. 4 before developing the new standards, but when other owners who knew nothing of the original meeting objected to the new ordinance, he suggested another gathering to work out details. Owner of Mobile Home Manor community, Patrick Peterson, who knew nothing of the initial meeting, said owners are just as interested in cleaning up dilapidated properties. ##

(Photo credit: Kaitlyn Walsh/northfieldnews.com–abandoned manufactured home)