June 24, 2008 — The Lassen County Board of Realtors, represented by its president, Tina Cordoba, asked the Board of Supervisors to overturn a resolution it passed in April affecting manufactured homes. The Lassen County Planning Commission recommended the board revise the mobile home placement criteria for specific zoning districts. The board held a public hearing on the issue and voted in favor of the commission’s recommendation, in part because no one spoke against the project.

Realtor Jim McCarthy said he never heard of the revision, otherwise he would have spoken up.

Board Chairman Jack Hanson reminded the audience the county did post the public hearing notice in the paper three times as required by law and had held a public hearing where no one opposed the changes.

He and the rest of the board agreed however to look at the zoning changes again and get the input from the realtors. However, the county has to follow the law and post the notice to have as public hearing on the matter. Until then the new ordinance stays in effect.

The new ordinance requires homes placed within residential zoning districts to have a date of manufacture not to exceed 10 years prior to the date of permit application.

Furthermore, homes placed outside of a residential zoning district are to be required to be manufactured within 20 years of permit application.

According to county staff, “had this proposal been in effect in 2007 it would have affected approximately 7 percent of the applications processed to place manufactured homes, with dates of manufacture ranging from 1977 to 1983.”

In May of 1989, the supervisors adopted Ordinance 493, which restricted the placement of mobile homes older than 1976 to specified agricultural and industrial zoning districts.

The staff reports states, “This was due to the influx of substandard, older units being brought into the county which did not meet the construction standards, and therefore could not be placed in other jurisdictions. At the time the board was concerned that Lassen County was becoming a dumping ground for substandard mobile homes. The 1976 date was tied to federal legislation governing manufactured housing construction standards.”

In response to higher standards in construction and in recognizing the need of local jurisdictions to upgrade its housing stock, section 65852.3 of the California Government Code was adopted which allows local jurisdictions to require that any newly placed homes have a date of manufacture within 10 years of the date of permit application.