PALMER, Alaska (KTUU) – In a runoff election led by Mayor Edna DeVries, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Council passed an ordinance at its meeting Tuesday repealing a county charter regarding the development of mobile home and trailer parks in the county.

The ordinance number OR24-053 essentially prohibits any new development of mobile homes or caravan parks within the district.

DeVries voted for the repeal after a tie vote of 3-3 among the legislators present. Representatives Stephanie Nowers of District 2, Tim Hale of District 1 and Dee McKee of District 3 voted against the ordinance sponsored by Rob Yundt of District 4.

Representatives for District 6 and District 7, Dmitri Fonov and Ron Bernier, voted in favor with Yundt. Bill Gamble from District 5 was absent from the meeting, giving DeVries the right to break the result in the event of a tie.

The ordinance successfully repealed MSB 17.48, a municipal ordinance governing the development of mobile home parks.

According to Alex Strawn, the county’s director of planning and land use, there are currently about 18 to 20 mobile home parks in the county. Repealing MSB 17.48 would have no impact on those existing parks.

“Those that exist and are authorized or grandfathered will be grandfathered in,” Strawn said.

Strawn said about six parks were already grandfathered in before a dozen more were created through the conditional planning permission process in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

As far as the district authorities know, no new parks have been built for at least 15 years.

Strawn said the recent repeal of the township’s bylaws regarding mobile home parks means building codes will revert to multi-family housing — bringing with them restrictions on substandard housing units.

“As a result, mobile home parks are effectively banned within the district,” Strawn said.

The loophole in the law, however, is that a substandard dwelling – such as a mobile home or trailer – could become a dwelling unit if it were placed on a foundation.

“If you put a mobile home on a foundation, it’s no longer a mobile home,” Strawn said. “At that point, it’s essentially treated like any other home and must comply with multifamily housing codes.”

Adding to the confusion during Tuesday’s meeting was the original information memorandum from May, which said the intent of the law was to “promote affordable housing” and that repealing the regulations would “potentially increase the availability of this type of housing and make it more accessible to those who need affordable housing.”

Yundt addressed the confusion during the meeting, explaining that the intent is not to build more mobile home parks, but to make it more difficult – if not impossible – to build such parks in the future.

Yundt proposed an amendment that would delete most of the original language and add, “The intent of this ordinance is to make it more difficult to develop a mobile home park.”

Yundt admitted that the confusion was caused by a misunderstanding between himself and the planning department and took responsibility for the misinformation presented.

The regulation came into force immediately after its adoption by the Assembly.

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