09/28/1970 Council Minutes (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

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204 The hearing on a request for rezoning to commercial and a special use permit for a trailer park for Gilbert Menkveld was called to order at 8:40 p.m. Mr. Locher noted that a change was requested in the area to be rezoned to include the entire tract. Mr. Locher then read the affidavits of mailing for this hearing and noted that the affidavits of posting and publication had been previously read and were on file. The. Clerk stated that she had same in the files. Mr. Walters took the floor to present mock -up 10 -acre models of a plat of regular houses and a mobile home park. He passed around samples of two pamphlets with facts on mobile homes, and mentioned that any proposed legislation which.was adopted in the 1971 session would probably not take effect until the middle of 1972 or 1973. He stated that the advent of the 14 ft. wide trailers in Minnesota had made the older models obsolete; also, thet50% of the trailers in Minnesota are outside of trailer parks. Mr. Walters stated that his group as well as many other organizations were asking for a standards code for the manufacture of trailers which would require a third party inspection. Mr. Walters then gave figures using national and state statistical averages, showing that the 10 -acre plat of 24 residential homes based on a $21,000 value for combined house and land would ultimately yield $16,700 in taxes, of which $11,690 would go to the school district to support the 15 school age children from those homes. From the mobile home court containing 60 units, based on a value of $8,000 per unit plus $2,000 per lot value, the total tax revenue would be $22,820 with the school's share at $12,820 for the same number of children. W. Walters mentioned that the new housing plat would not yield these taxes until 1973 if built in 1971, but the trailer taxes for half the units (providing the court were completely filled in 2 years) would come back in 1971 and 100% in 1972. Mr. Walters also noted that there would be continuing municipal cost to maintain streets and easements in the housing plat but that the mobile home park owner must maintain his own streets. Discussion on taxes, road easements, the license plates required for trailers and the derivation of the number of children from trailer parks followed. Mr. L'Allier had some questions for clarification: on using State statistics rather than national; non- homestead tax base (only homestead if on State of Federal leased land); the Class 2 personal property classification (Mr. Walters noted that Class 2 refers to property on leased land); the change in taxes for mobile homes if the new legislation is passed (Mr. Walters thought it might increase taxes slightly). Mr. L'Allier asked what the purpose was for recommending changes in the present law. Mr. Walters answered that, "today this is our law, but let's rewrite it for agreement's sake." After more discussion Mr. Jaworski noted that it won't gain anything if the trailers won't, qualify as homestead under the new laws; Mr. Walters countered that they were trying to put the trailer on an equitable basis, but it was up to the municipality to set the taxes. Mr. Walters stated that his group was the prime mover behind the League's proposal to get the mobile home into title law for chattel mortgages; they have been doing a lot of research on taxing them equally with real estate. ! L'Allier asked whether the new law would cause more taxes to be gen.Qrated from a mobile home than at present and if the mobile home would appreciate in value. Mr. Walters stated that this depended on local policy and on wehther the trailer owner added things such as a breezeway and garage. Mr. L'Allier asked_ what prompted the action on the uniform code enforcement; Mr. Walters replied that this was agreed upon on a national level. Self - policing by the industry was necessary for a better quality of mobile homes.