On Tuesday, November 14, the Monticello Planning Commission held its monthly meeting at 6 p.m. in the City Council Chambers. Chairman Dan Voice called the meeting to order and found that there was a quorum present. After roll call, commissioner Lou Lambert gave an invocation. The commissioners approved the agenda. Boice said that he hadn’t received minutes from October, so the approval of those minutes would be pushed back to December.
Boice opened the meeting to public comments, but there were none.
The first piece of business on the agenda was to look into revising Ordinance 526. The proposed revision would delete “including prefabricated and mobile homes.” This would do away with the requirement to purchase a building permit for prefabricated and mobile homes. Monticello Fire Marshall Dale Jones said that the though behind this was simple, “it isn’t fair to charge someone for a building permit on a structure that they aren’t building, it’s already been built.”
“They already have to buy a placement permit to put it in it’s location. They have to get electrical inspections, sewer and water hookups, we just don’t think it’s fair to charge them for a building permit on something someone else built,” Jones added.
The motion was made and seconded to revise the ordinance.
“They’re asking for prefabricated homes and mobile homes to be exempt,” asked commissioner Stephen Coburn.
“Only for the building permit, because they didn’t build the structure,” replied Jones.
“Don’t building permits cover more, such as water and electrical. Isn’t that part of the building permit,” asked Coburn.
“Those are separate permits,” replied Jones.
“All mobile homes have to meet HUD standards and guidelines, and everything outside of the structure has to be inspected by us,” Jones added.
“There is also a date requirement that won’t let you move a mobile home if it was built after a certain date,” added Commissioner Cathy Campbell.
“I’m not trying to be negative, I’m trying to understand. It would appear that doing this wouldn’t give us the power to regulate this,” added Coburn.
“What are you trying to regulate,” asked Jones.
“I’m just trying to understand because it doesn’t appear that prefabricated or mobile homes have to meet any standards for approval. Couldn’t someone just put one wherever they want,” said Coburn.
“You can build a house anywhere,” replied Campbell.
“This seems inconsistent with some of our previous conversations on the community we are wanting to create. I don’t understand why we would exclude them,” said Coburn.
“What do you mean by ‘Type of Community’,” asked Jones.
“We’ve talked about zoning, we talked just last month about having further work put into what is the atmosphere of Monticello that we want to create. Part of that is zoning, and having some ability to limit what can go where. This seems to be contrary to that,” Coburn remarked.
“Are you trying to say that you can’t just move a mobile home in here,” Campbell asked.
“No, not just anywhere,” Coburn replied.
“If a person owns their property, and the mobile home is within regulations I don’t see why they can’t,” Campbell stated.
“Let me clear this up, it’s really simple. A building permit is to erect a structure over 120 square feet,” Jones said. “These structures are already built. This has nothing to do with where they are going, and it has nothing to do with zoning, it has nothing to do with any of that. To put it simply, we don’t agree with charging people for a permit to build something that is already built.”
“This just seems like splitting hairs,” Coburn said.
“That makes no sense,” Jones said. “We simply don’t want to charge people for a permit on a structure that they aren’t building.”
“Well, I’m opposed to this,” Coburn stated.
Jones noted that the term “prefabricated” could be confusing. In the ordinance it is referring to storage buildings, but some of the recent building in Monticello, like Holiday Inn and Murphy are “modular buildings” which are built off-site and put together in their final location.
With this need of clarification, Coburn moved to table the revisions until these clarifications could be made. The motion died on the floor, which brought the original motion back to the table. It was noted that if this was passed it would have to be revisited to address verbiage concerns.
“Why would we pass something that we would have to revisit,” Coburn asked. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
The motion passed with a vote of three to two, with Boice and Coburn dissenting.
“Just to be clear, we just approved to send this to the City Council knowing that it isn’t clear,” asked Coburn.
“We did,” replied Boice.
“That is unbelievable,” Coburn remarked.
“That’s life,” replied Campbell.
The commissioners also voted to revise Ordinance 830 which would change the limit from $1 million to $500,000 on projects that would need Planning Commission approval. The commission asked Jones if he could keep them up to date on all projects so that they can stay informed. He said that he could. The commissioners passed the revision.
Boice then presented the proposed Truck Route. It was noted that State School Road needed to be added to accommodate Pine Bluff Sand and Gravel. Jones also noted there there are a lot of one-ton vehicles in the area. The three quarter ton limit would make these un-drivable on the streets. After discussion it was agreed to change the weight limit to one-ton and add State School Road to the plan, and revisit at the next meeting in December.
