Grovetown says mobile homes will be checked

Grovetown officials on Monday approved an ordinance designed to help clean up the city's mobile home parks.

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It's the second time the city has reworked the law. A year ago, in an effort to keep out dilapidated trailers, the city council voted to prohibit mobile homes more than 10 years old from being brought into the city.

A state law passed this year, however, bans cities from regulating mobile homes based on age, sending city officials back to the drawing board. That law goes into effect Sept. 1.

Grovetown officials researched other cities' rules and held a meeting to solicit input from mobile home park owners, home inspectors, mobile home movers/installers and representatives of the Georgia Manufactured Housing Association.

The new ordinance requires that any mobile home brought into or moved within the city be inspected by one of a list of city-approved home inspectors based on the city's habitability standards.

The standards checklist addresses the home's exterior, including the roof, underpinning, decks, porches and tie-downs. The checklist also includes water, sewer and electrical connections and the appearance of the interior floor, central heat, windows, wiring, mold and mildew, and the water heaters. The kitchen and bathroom plumbing, appliances and ventilation also have to meet habitability standards.

The applicant must post a $5,000 bond to move the home, and the move must be done by a licensed mobile home installer. The applicant can then have utilities connected for a 60-day trial period to have the inspection done.

But no one can live in the mobile home until it has passed the habitability inspection and has all the proper permits, tax stickers and a certificate of occupancy from the city.

"Everything is pretty much taken care of," Randy Gilbert, the owner of Creekside Estates mobile home park, said at the meeting.

Gilbert resisted the initial ordinance and restrictions on mobile homes. But he said he's happy with the newest changes.

The ordinance also requires concrete or masonry underpinning for mobile homes on individual lots and cement, masonry or vinyl underpinnings for mobile homes in mobile home parks.

City officials also approved local attorney Grady Blanchard as the new associate judge for the Grovetown Municipal Court.

Blanchard replaces John Flythe, who resigned in July after being named to a Richmond County State Court judgeship.