Christine Ballard, manager of Mohave County’s Planning and Zoning Division, said the goal of the ordinance is to provide “healthy, safe and beneficial development,” for the residents, as well as to avoid becoming a dumping ground for dilapidated mobile homes.
Opponents to the measure include retailers, installers, et al in the industry who depend upon the sales of older homes that are still in good shape, as well as individuals who can only afford an older, but decent, MH.
In neighboring Bullhead City they passed a similar ordinance to clean up a run-down area, but many of the owners were California investors who let the homes deteriorate anyhow.
MH owner James Coleman said, “I don’t think it’s going to accomplish anything and it’s going to do a lot of harm,” he said. “If a guy can’t afford to sell his house and buy something better, he’s going to leave it there, so you haven’t accomplished anything.”
Retailers will not want to accept them as trade-ins because they cannot be sold, said Mike Luxton, salesman at Mohave Homes in Golden Valley. He stated, “There’s no good reason to have this ordinance in the first place. It eliminates a large portion of the tax base because any home over seven years old is basically worthless. If you want to trade it in, you’ll get nothing because it can’t be reset. It’d have to be demolished and taken to the dump.”
He adds, “There are thousands of people here that need housing and can only afford a mobile home. Fifty percent of them that live in a manufactured home could upgrade their home by buying a home that’s only seven or eight years old. Now that’s going to be impossible.”
Billie Ragan, co-owner of Sunwest Enterprises of Kingman, which installs MH, said, “The majority of homes we set in the last two-plus years are older than seven years. That’s how we survived, because we have no retailers. With the economy the way it is, a lot of people can’t afford a new home, so they’re buying older homes.” She adds that if the county thinks your home is worthless after seven years, you should not have to pay taxes on it. ##
(Photo credit: az–Bullhead City, Mojave County, Arizona)
