Minutes before the Battle Ground City Council’s 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 21, meeting was adjourned at 10:29 p.m., the council provided direction to city staff to draft an emergency moratorium on mobile home park redevelopment.
The issue comes as the city examines options for properties currently used as mobile home parks. Lehto explained one of the three parks, located south of Wilco — Battle Ground Mobile Home Community — has been in a commercial zoning designation for more than 20 years.
The other two are located in areas zoned for high-density residential use.
While there are currently no active redevelopment plans for a mobile home community in city limits, Battle Ground Mobile Home Community, with roughly 180 households, did land on the market for sale in June.
The Battle Ground City Council directed city staff Monday to draft an emergency moratorium intended to prevent existing mobile home parks within city limits from being developed for non-mobile home uses.
The discussion came during the council’s Sept. 21 meeting after Community Development Director Kristin Lehto presented a summary of the three existing mobile home parks in Battle Ground, including information about their zoning, state regulations and approaches other jurisdictions have taken to protect such properties in a prior biweekly report.
The council ultimately directed staff to draft an emergency moratorium lasting six months and return the proposed language to the council for review, with a public hearing to follow if needed.
“I'd like to direct staff to draft an emergency moratorium for the mobile home parks in the city limits that would essentially not allow development of non-mobile home use currently, as it sits for a period of six months and bring that back to council,” Mayor Eric Overholser said.
The motion went through several clarifications during the meeting before the council settled on the direction.
After further discussion, staff clarified that the council’s direction was to bring back language for an emergency moratorium to protect existing mobile home parks for six months.
The council then voted unanimously to approve the clarified motion.
Council Member Munson said he wanted the record to reflect that the current zoning situation was not created by the current council.
“I just want it known for the record that this council hasn't done anything of misfeasance or malfeasance since it's caused this issue that this was something that was handed down from five councils ago,” Munson said.
Munson also identified a temporary overlay as another option he wanted the council to explore.
“That option three on there, creating a temporary overlay is something I myself would like to explore,” Munson said. “That also works in conjunction with the mayor's motion about a moratorium.”
Munson said he wanted the city to examine its legal options for creating such an overlay.
Overholser said the moratorium could provide the council additional time to evaluate the options before making a longer-term decision.
“But I think the moratorium, the main thing that it does is buy us some time to look at the options a little closer and then have some real discussion about what we're going to do with that,” Overholser said.
Staff is expected to return with proposed language for council review before the city moves forward with the next steps.
