By Billy Davis

Panola County government is expected to tighten its rules for mobile homes, prodded by a dilapidated trailer that was moved to a lot in the Courtland community.

New rules may require piers, which anchor the trailer, and licensed transportation for transporting a mobile home, among other requirements, say county officials.

The single-wide trailer home was towed by a Ford tractor onto a lot on Wells Street Extended April 10, according to neighbors.

“It is a piece of junk,” Johnny Ard, who lives five houses down, said of the home that sports broken windows, twisted and discolored metal, and rottening wood along the roof line.

A reporter who visited the mobile home saw that the front door is fastened shut with a cord.

The unsightly trailer created an overnight uproar among neighbors whose vocal complaints quickly reached Supervisor Gary Thompson.

After viewing the trailer, Thompson told the county land commission that the Board of Supervisors favors new rules for mobile homes.

“I think we’re ready,” Thompson, the board president, told the commission Monday night in Sardis.

Panola County has operated with a set of zoning regulations for more than a decade, but county rules that specifically target mobile homes are almost non-existent. An inspection of the wastewater system is required by the Mississippi Department of Health, and federal law bans mobile homes manufactured before June 15, 1976, when safer wiring was required.

The only Panola County rules that affect mobile homes are:

•A $25 permit to build a home or set up a mobile home on a new lot;

 •Minimum setbacks, including 50 feet from the front, which are required for both houses and mobile homes;

•A maximum of one residence per acre, which also affects both houses and mobile homes.

Field Dew, a Miss. Department of Health employee, inspects the wastewater systems and also inspects setbacks on behalf of the county.

Dew told a reporter he would pass along a suggestion for Panola County: enact an ordinance similar to Tate County, which prohibits mobile homes, older than 20 years old, on new property.

“I’ve been on a lot of property and seen what an old trailer home looks like: holes in the walls and wires hanging out,” Dew said. “I’ve seen sewer systems that were worth more than the trailer.”

It’s unclear if any future rules would affect existing mobile homes, including the Wells Street trailer, since zoning rules typically allow existing property to be exempt, or “grandfathered.”  

Supervisor Thompson had opposed a push for stricter rules as recently as February, when the Board of Supervisors formally adopted residential building codes.  

Supervisors Kelly Morris and James Birge urged their colleagues to address mobile homes, but Thompson suggested that any regulations should be a “separate issue” to be discussed at a later date.

Thompson and other supervisors, when they began discussing building codes, had said they were leery of a public backlash. The land commission had also vigorously discussed mobile home codes but dropped the issue, also out of concern that backlash would jeopardize the passage of building codes.

Discussion of mobile home regulations dates back to 2007, when several fire-related deaths occurred in mobile homes. Reacting to those deaths, late Supervisor Robert Avant told The Panolian he would support action by the land commission to crack down on shoddy and deteriorating mobile homes.

Land commissioners, bolstered by Avant’s vocal support, began discussing the topic in January 2008.

In back-and-forth discussion, however, commissioners agreed that manpower would be inadequate to inspect a mobile home every time it changes hands in Panola County.

Avant’s widow, Supervisor Vernice Avant, has also urged the Board of Supervisors to take action.

The issue apparently picked up speed when Thompson’s phone began ringing this week. Once he viewed the mobile home, it made the point clear: current zoning rules allow a mobile home, regardless of condition, to locate anywhere in the county.  

 “I looked at that trailer and that was the last straw,” Thompson told The Panolian.

The Courtland lot is owned by Jimmy Scott of Quitman County, who said Wednesday he was unaware the trailer had been moved onto the property. A relative, without permission, had moved the mobile home onto the property, he later told The Panolian.

“It’s a free-loading thing – something for nothing. It’s going to be gone,” Scott said.

Wells Street Extended resident Floyd Sanders, who lives next to Scott’s property, said Thursday the mobile home was still sitting on Scott’s lot.

“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever laid two eyes on,” said Sanders, who has lived at 682 Wells Street Extended since 1971.

A wood fence lined with azaleas, planted by wife Minnie Sanders, is hiding the trailer from their brick home.

Across from the mobile home, homeowner Boyce Crowell maintains a large brick home surrounded by rolling, well-maintained horse pastures. His winding driveway brings him onto Wells Street Extended, right in front of the dilapidated trailer.

“The trailer is a prime example of why the county needs some zoning rules,” said Crowell. “It devalues everyone’s property in the whole area, not just one or two homes.”

Crowell also said, despite Scott’s assurances, that his new neighbors were mowing the grass Wednesday evening, apparently expecting to move into their mobile home.

According to Ard, he believes a mobile home, even in good condition, drops the value of a stick-built home if the two are located close together.

“I don’t have a problem with a mobile home, but it is what it is,” he said.

In fact, mobile homes depreciate over time, a problem that affects property values in Panola and other counties, since county government largely relies on rising property values to operate. Panola’s one-acre rule was enacted, in part, to ensure the acreage retains its value even as the trailer’s value drops.

In Courtland, a town ordinance prohibits new mobile homes from being moved into the city limits, partly to ensure the town is not crowded with them, Ard said.

“That protects my property values because I’m inside the city limits,” Ard said. “But it doesn’t do anything west of me, where Mr. Sanders and Mr. Crowell are at the mercy of whatever moves next door.”