New Main St. mobile homes banned in Patterson

New mobile homes and similar buildings will no longer be allowed on Main Street after the city council passed amendments to the city’s zoning ordinance Tuesday.
The council approved three amendments to the zoning ordinance to restrict trailers, mobile homes, manufactured homes, modular homes and trailer parks from being located on Main Street.
Existing structures of these sorts are grandfathered in and allowed to continue to exist on Main Street, but if one of those types of structures is removed from the property it will not be allowed to be replaced on Main Street under the amendment, City Attorney Russel Cremaldi said.
Patterson resident Ronnie Romero said he lives with his wife, Susan, at 411 Main St. in a mobile home. The property has been in his wife’s family her entire life and probably more than 100 years, Romero said.
The couple is in the process of selling his wife’s parents’ home on Main Street and plans to buy a new mobile home to put on the property, but the amendment to the zoning ordinance prohibits that action, Romero said. Therefore, he and his wife would have to move off the property if they could not put a mobile home on it, he said.
Amending an ordinance affects 14 other families who live on Main Street, Romero said.
Councilmen Larry Mendoza and John Rentrop voted to approve the amendments, but both told Romero they would be willing to approve a hardship variance for cases such as his. Councilwoman Sandra Turner was the lone dissenting vote against the amendments. Turner said she would have been in favor of an amendment to the ordinance that exempted anyone who currently has a mobile home on Main Street from the ordinance.
Rentrop said the intent of the amendments to the ordinance was designed to make the Main Street area more appealing and encourage people to move to the area.
Patterson Mayor Rodney Grogan encouraged Romero to apply for a hardship variance through the planning and zoning department.
The council adopted the city’s $9.7 million budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 and ending June 30, 2015. City Accountant Reginald Weary said, “In that figure, we are anticipating $2 million in capital outlay to start with the water plant,” Weary said. The city’s budgeted revenues are about $7.7 million, Weary said.
Engineer Clay Breaud said the city has a pre-bid meeting scheduled June 19 to build the city’s new water plant.
Regarding the replacement of the Shade Grove Bridge, the pipe for that project is supposed to be delivered Friday, City Public Works Director Steve Bierhorst said.
In other business, the council:
—Approved an ordinance levying a 2014 tax of 16 mills on the dollar paying public improvement bond issues and a general alimony tax of 8.2 mills on the dollar.
—Approved The Daily Review as the city’s official journal.
—Introduced an ordinance to purchase the Golino Property for a price not to exceed $125,000. The property is located on the east side of Main Street, Cremaldi said.
—Approved additional cost of about $57,000 to a Martin Luther King Jr. Street project to repair water lines under the street.
—Approved an amendment to the 2013-14 budget.