Currently, a Bowden bylaw makes it impractical to bring new mobile homes into a mobile home park in the town or to do major renovations to them, chief administrative officer James Mason says.
So he hopes to bring a bylaw amendment to council by this fall.
“I'm hoping some time over the summer we can get something for council to work on,” he says.
Mason brought the issue up during a Bowden council meeting.
He and several councillors concluded that when a bylaw was revised in about 2012, it not only applied to R1 (single family residential) homes but also to R2 and to R3, which included mobile homes.
The matter was brought to Mason's attention by a man who wanted to make some changes to homes in a mobile home park.
“Essentially, if he had a unit that he wanted to pull out and put a new one in, the new one would have to fall into the requirements in that land use bylaw,” Mason said in an interview.
“He could still meet the regulations but it would be such a huge step that it's unlikely – it's not impossible – but it's unlikely that it would happen, which doesn't really work when we're trying to upgrade things.
“We want people to improve (their property) but if we set the bar too high, the odds are it's unlikely to happen.”
“I remember the changes in the land use bylaw, but I think we probably did it for the R1 and then we maybe didn't pay attention to R2 or R3. So it just carries on rather than being specifically adjusted,” mayor Robb Stuart said during the council meeting.
Mason says the town wants to change the bylaw to fix that problem but doesn't want to rush into anything.
He's held initial discussions with Red Deer County officials but also wants to check out how other municipalities handle the matter before coming up with a proposed amendment.
“I don't see where we're in any kind of a panic to rush through and get something that is not going to work,” he says.
Mason says it's understandable how something like this could happen.
“I'm not going to say it was anybody's doing. Sometimes this happens,” he says. “They're big bylaws, right? So it's pretty hard for anyone to read all the way through them so sometimes things happen and you've got to go back and look at it again.”
"We want people to improve (their property) but if we set the bar too high, the odds are it's unlikely to happen."JAMES MASONBOWDEN'S CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER
