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City of Mounds View Staff Report May 2, 1997 • Page 2 motivated to make sure the mobile homes are maintained. As we understand it, this has not been the case in Towns Edge Terrace. Mr. Long said that the City can enforce its Housing Code in the mobile home parks independent of when sales occur. Staff would note that, although this option has been available, we would require additional staff and/or a change in priorities to undertake a systematic program of enforcement in the mobile home parks. We would suggest, that before such a program is undertaken, we develop resources to help finance repairs for mobile home owners, because we do not believe the owners of the more deteriorated mobile homes will have the financial wherewithal to repair them. We would also want to know Wit would even be possible for us to do repairs and then certify the costs to the County for collection with taxes, since mobile home owners do not own their lots. Our concern is that if we press forward on requiring repairs, the homes will just be abandoned. We need to develop a game plan for obtaining compliance, not just for doing inspections. With regard to instituting a point of sale program, Staff has surveyed nine cities in the Twin Cities Metropolitan area as to types of programs being used. The results of the survey are shown in the attached table. These cities use three basic approaches: Truth-in-housing: Two of the cities are using this approach: Hopkins and Maplewood. This type le of program requires an inspection be done, and information be supplied to the buyer on existing code violations, prior to the sale taking place. The inspection is done by a private inspector. This approach emphasizes disclosure only. We have received feedback from the cities using this approach that they do not believe it is worth the effort because there are no teeth in the program. Several cities which have truth-in-housing programs are considering adopting point-of-sale type programs. Truth in housing and repair of immediate hazards: This program is similar to the one described above, but immediate hazards must be corrected prior to the sale. This approach is used by Bloomington and St. Paul, and is an improvement over the straight truth-in-housing programs. It emphasis disclosure and some code compliance. Point-of-Sale: This type of program is being used in Crystal, New Hope, Richfield, St. Louis Park and South St. Paul. It requires that an inspection be done, and that the code violations be repaired prior to the sale taking place. Three of the cities use city inspectors;two of the cities are set up so the initial inspection is done by a private inspector, and the reinspection by a city inspector. This approach emphasizes code compliance. The attached chart shows the fees charged and the staffing used in each of the cities. It should be noted that the staffing requirement is highest for point-of-sale using city inspectors and lowest for truth-in-housing programs. Just for information, there were 98 homes sold in Mounds View in • 1996, and 26 mobile homes sold in Colonial Village.