FEMA can finally place mobile homes on single-family lots in North Port (Lee: subdivisions)

[wondermint2]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fe...45a0766e&ei=67


North Port city commissioners approved an ordinance Tuesday that allows FEMA to temporarily place larger mobile homes on single-family lots to help families impacted by Hurricane Ian, despite worries that they'll face problems later removing the structures after the allowance expires.


The ordinance, passed on a 4-1 vote with Commissioner Pete Emrich dissenting, declared a housing emergency, back-dated to last Sept. 23 to coincide with the state of emergency declared by Gov. Ron DeSantis in anticipation of Hurricane Ian’s landfall Sept. 28 on Cayo Costa in Lee County.


That housing emergency allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide direct temporary housing assistance for up to 18 months from Sept. 29, 2022 – the date of the federal disaster declaration – to March 28, 2024.


People living in the temporary housing can petition for extensions in six-month increments, which, in theory, could allow displaced people to reside in FEMA-provided homes for a total of 36 months.


After the storm, city officials extended a limit on how long a travel-trailer could be parked at a single-family home but balked at declaring the housing emergency because of concerns about allowing FEMA and private entities to place larger mobile homes on the typical 80-foot-by-120-foot lots that General Development Corp. created when designing the city in the 1950s.


Before Tuesday, the chief reason stated by commissioners opposing larger mobile homes on single-family lots had been that, while the federal government would remove them, private entities would not and the city would have to resort to code enforcement efforts to have them removed.


Emrich, who held steadfast in his opposition, cited other concerns, such as the possibility that the homes would block emergency service response to neighbors and possibly encroach on adjacent property.


He reiterated that larger mobile homes could work in subdivisions with large lots but stressed that in “some of these communities around here it doesn’t work.”


“It’s not a universal fix in this city,” he added.