PA 07-43—sSB 1236

General Law Committee

Planning and Development Committee

AN ACT CONCERNING THE UPGRADING OF EXISTING MOBILE MANUFACTURED HOME PARKS

SUMMARY: Under this act, replacing a mobile manufactured home in a mobile manufactured home park with one that has the same or different dimensions does not constitute an expansion of a nonconforming use, if the home is built in compliance with federal mobile manufactured home construction and safety standards. By law, zoning regulations cannot prohibit the continuation of a land use that was legal when the regulations were adopted, but they often prohibit the expansion of such legal nonconforming uses.

EFFECTIVE DATE: Upon passage

BACKGROUND

Wiltzius v. Zoning Board of Appeals of New Milford (2006 WL 463380)

The suit involved a mobile manufactured home park located in an area that was subsequently zoned for single house lots with a 60,000 or 80,000 square-foot minimum lot size. Neither zone allows mobile manufactured home parks. An abutting property owner challenged the zoning board of appeal's decision to issue permits allowing mobile manufactured homes to be replaced with larger ones. The Superior Court held that the board could not issue zoning permits for mobile manufactured homes larger and taller than the homes they were replacing. The court did so even after noting that many of the homes in the park predated federal manufactured home standards which, although they did not require homes to be larger, include requirements setting minimum room sizes, ceiling heights, roof truss standards, and roof load tests that effectively ended the manufacture of smaller, 10-foot wide homes.

OLR Tracking: DD: HN: JL: TS