Friday, April 29, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- A bill to tighten the law forcing mobile home parks to meet the health and safety standards was approved by the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee today.
The bill by Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, is aimed at preventing another case such as Sky Vue Mobile Home, Park which was condemned and closed by Las Vegas and Health District officials because of the poor conditions after a Sun investigation highlighted the problems there last year.
Sen. Warren Hardy, R-Las Vegas, said it is appropriate to force mobile home parks to be brought up to standards, but he predicted some of the parks close rather than make expensive repairs.
"Some owners will walk away," he said.
Renee Diamond, administrator of the state's Manufactured Housing Division, told the committee that more trailer parks are closing every year. Some 3,000 spaces were lost in the last year in Southern Nevada and she predicted three more mobile home parks will soon shut down.
Giunchigliani said the goal of this bill is not to shut down the parks but to rehabilitate them.
Diamond said some of these parks can be rehabilitated, and she agreed with Giunchigliani that "it is incumbent on government to tell them what to do" to fix the problems.
Assembly Bill 343 includes a provision to allow local governments to recover tenant relocation costs from owners of condemned trailer parks.
The bill also "better coordinates the inspections and makes sure the division of manufactured housing is contacted on all violations," Giunchigliani said. "Currently you have nobody letting the other person know when they encountered another problem." The Sun investigation revealed that to be one of the major reasons why problems had gone unabated at Sky Vue for so long.
In that case, each inspector dealt myopically with only his or her specific topic of inspection, Giunchigliani said.
Under her bill, the state's regulators of trailer parks also would be permitted to levy fines up to $500 and that money could be used to help improve conditions.
The bill also requires that not only the park manager but the owner must take a class about the standards that must be met.
The bill goes to the full Senate for approval. If the Senate approves it, it will return to the Assembly for agreement on amendments proposed by Giunchigliani.
Before the bill passed this morning, however, committee members expressed concern about the loss of affordable housing in Southern Nevada. Hardy said a problem is the federal government owns most of the land in the state and that doesn't allow for expansion.
"We need to encourage affordable housing," Hardy said. "Everything now is expensive high-rise."
Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, said many apartments in Clark County are now being converted to condominiums, and land is so valuable now in Southern Nevada that the owners of the mobile home parks on West Tropicana Avenue could sell their land for $1 million an acre.
The committee is talking about an interim study of the housing situation to help those with low or moderate incomes.
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