The current site of Golden Valley Mobile Home Park in Imperial.

The current site of Golden Valley Mobile Home Park in Imperial.

Timing is apparently everything, at least when it comes to converting a mobile home park in west Imperial into a subdivision of 48 small-lot homes.

The Jefferson County Council voted 6-0 on June 27 to advance to a final vote a request from Meridian Development to rezone a 23-acre parcel on Rhonda Sue Drive near Old Hwy. 21 and East Swaller Road from planned mixed residential to planned single-family, which would pave the way for the subdivision to be developed.

The site is now the Golden Valley Mobile Home Park. If the homes are built, the development would be called Emerald Pointe.

The council, which has the sole authority to rezone property in unincorporated areas, is expected to take a final vote on the proposal on July 11.

The request was in limbo after the council’s June 13 meeting, when it deadlocked on an amendment proposed by Councilwoman Renee Reuter (District 2, Imperial), who lives near the site. Then, the council failed to advance the original request.

Before the vote on June 27 to send the proposal to a final vote, the council voted 6-0 to accept Reuter’s amendment.

The Jefferson County Planning and Zoning Commission voted 7-1 at its April 28 meeting to recommend that the County Council approve the plans.

Reuter’s amendment reversed the P and Z board’s decision to allow 26-foot-wide streets with parking restricted to one side rather than the 28 feet required under county codes. The amendment also called for the new development to use the mobile home park’s current entrance, with no additional entrances on Rhonda Sue Drive, a steep, curvy, narrow road.

Reuter’s amendment also calls for no vegetation to be removed within 25 feet of Rhonda Sue Drive.

“I just want it to be safer,” Reuter said. “That hill doesn’t need any more cars on it and the land doesn’t need to be disturbed.”

Gene Fribis of Heneghan and Associates in Arnold, whose firm drew up the plans for Emerald Pointe, said his client agreed with Reuter’s amendment.

Councilman Brian Haskins (District 1, High Ridge), Dan Stallman (District 6, De Soto) and Vicky James (District 7, Cedar Hill) changed their votes from June 13 to June 27.

All three said they didn’t object to Reuter’s changes but didn’t like that she had given her fellow council members her amendment about a half-hour before the June 13 meeting.

“I don’t like to vote on amendments placed before me that night,” James said. “I don’t like having to vote on something without considering the economic impact for the developer if those changes are made.”

Reuter said she had submitted her amendment to the county’s planning staff and had only been given an approved copy shortly before the June 13 meeting.

Mobile home park has history

At the April 28 hearing before the P and Z board, Fribis said the park is about 60 years old and the Golden family has owned it for the past 50 years.

The family recently sold the land to Meridian, which closed on the property a couple of weeks ago, he said.

Of the 50 pads in the park, only seven are occupied, said Mike Lawless, a manager with Meridian.

Fribis said the mobile home park is in poor shape.

“The streets are in disrepair. There used to be an onsite sanitary sewer system that essentially was a swimming pool. That’s been abandoned. The existing water and sewer lines are aging, and there’s no telling what kind of shape they’re in. There is no stormwater system,” he said.

Meridian’s plans include 48 homes on lots of 6,000 square feet or larger. The subdivision, Fribis said, would be built on the footprint of the mobile home park, which is in a valley. A stormwater detention basin will be built.

Lawless said about 8.8 acres of the site would be used for the development, with the remaining 23 wooded acres, mostly the steep, wooded sides of the valley, preserved as common ground.

Lawless said the homes would be priced at $200,000 to $260,000.

“We generally would call the (size) of the homes starter homes. They used to be plentiful in this area, but now most of the building has been in the $300,000 to $500,000 range,” he said. “I think there’s a good market for these kinds of homes.”

Lawless said the Golden Valley residents have been informed that they would need to move.

“They’ll have plenty of time to find a new location for their mobile home, or if they want to just move out, we’ll take care of their mobile home,” Lawless said. “We have given them until July to vacate.”

Two current residents of the park spoke against the changes.

“Why can’t they leave it as a mobile home park?” Cheryl Meek asked. “They’re destroying what is already there. Three of (the seven) residents have disabled spouses. I live paycheck to paycheck as it is, and that’s the way we all live.”

Neighbor Linda James said her husband is disabled and she needs more time to arrange for alternate housing.

“I’m the only one supporting my family of three, which includes my husband and my son,” she said. “We need adequate time to move, say five or six months. Speaking for the people who live there, this is devastating news. And I don’t know how he’s going to fit 48 homes in there.”

Lawless said there was consideration to keep the mobile home community.

“We looked at keeping it as a trailer park, but it wasn’t economical considering all the regulations you have to follow. I’ve built hundreds of homes, but I’ve never built a trailer park. I found out what I didn’t know about trailer parks. And it’s likely that the mobile homes that are already there, they would have had to go (to meet current regulations). We’ll work with the people who are there. I’m not trying to be a bad guy.”

Mike Perry, who lives off East Swaller Road about a mile from the park, said he didn’t oppose the development, but wondered how it would affect enrollment and particularly traffic congestion at Clyde Hamrick Elementary School, 4525 East Four Ridge Road, about 1 1/2 miles away from the park.

He said parents’ cars back up in the area around the school both in the morning and afternoon.

“Something needs to be done about that,” he said. “But I have nothing against this development. It seems like a good area to do it in.”

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