New Laws For RVs, Manufactured Homes
by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Town Board held a workshop meeting on Friday evening December 4 about two laws nearing completion, one on using RVs for residential purposes and one on siting manufactured and mobile homes and micro homes or tiny houses. These laws had been extensively discussed at a series of meetings in the summer and the agreements from those meetings collated by Heinz Noeding into the draft presented at this meeting.
The RV law requires a special use permit to be obtained annually by those who would like to use an RV for temporary accommodation. The permit allows residential use of the RV for a maximum of 120 days each year, and these days must be between April 1 and December 1. It provides for a fine of up to $250 per day for violations.
To get the Special Use Permit the applicant must submit a site plan for Planning Board review and document the systems to be used for water supply, sewage disposal and garbage disposal. Existing RVs being used in Petersburgh for residential purposes have 180 days after the enactment of the law to get a Special Use Permit.
The Town’s Codes Enforcement Officer issues the permits and is responsible for enforcement of the law.
The other law under consideration concerns Mobile Homes, Manufactured Homes and Micro-Homes/Tiny Houses, which replaces a law on this subject from 2015. The law treats all of these types of homes substantially the same. Installation of such homes requires site plan review, Rensselaer County Health Department approval for water and septic, frost free foundation, rigid skirt installation and must be done by a certified manufactured home installer.
There are also provisions in the law which allow replacement of an existing mobile home on an existing foundation in certain cases.
The Board accepted both laws as presented and did not make any changes to them, but it cannot vote to adopt them until after a public hearing is held. A Public Hearing on these two laws was scheduled for 6:30 pm on Monday December 21 prior to the regular December Town Board meeting.
The Board then reminded itself that the Town’s site plan review law needs to be revised. Councilman Heinz Noeding asked the Planning Board to put together a first draft of a revised Site Plan Review law. Planning Board Chairman Martin Conboy and Planning Board member Victoria Abbondola volunteered to work on that draft. The Board re-affirmed its intention to require site plan review for all one and two family dwellings. Until recently one and two family dwellings have
been exempted from
site plan review.