The city of Kewanee has been dealing for the past few years with a major headache: The city’s three mobile home parks.
The former Reecy’s facility on the west side of town, Reecy’s East just off Lake Street and Southwind Mobile Home Park on Cole Street have gone through several owners, none of whom seemingly paid much attention to them.
Weeds and scrub trees grew up throughout the parks; vacant trailers stood among still-occupied units and roads in the parks were filled with potholes.
But the worst, from the city’s point of view, was a backlog of unpaid water bills. While some of the tenants paid their bills to the parks’ owners, that money apparently didn’t get forwarded to the city, leaving unpaid bills totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Some of the residents have been paying for their water, sending payments to the parks’ owners.
Others haven’t been paying, and several legal battles have resulted in the courts siding with the tenants and requiring the city to restore water service.
The city is pursuing payment of at least some of the backlog of water bills in court.
Now, the City Council wants to make sure nothing like this ever happens again in Kewanee.
At its meeting Monday, the council approved an ordinance making some changes to the existing ordinance governing mobile home parks. These included requiring a special use permit for any mobile home parks established in the city from here on.
Keith Edwards, the city’s community development director, said none of the mobile home parks have a special use permit from the city. Edwards said all three parks were established before the zoning code requiring the permits was enacted. That means they’re considered “nonconforming uses.”
The amended ordinance also raises the annual license fee for each park from $50 to $250 and requires that the current license be “in good standing, through the Illinois Department of Public Health.”
But council members agreed that much more is needed.
Councilman Adam Cernovich said the city should keep a list of any special use permits that are issued for mobile home parks. And City Attorney Zac Lesard said there also should be a list of who is occupying what trailers.
Council members also agreed that the city should work more closely with the Board of Health in regulating the parks.
Mayor Gary Moore said he’s sure that the current council, after all the problems the city has had with mobile home parks, will be active in pursuing solutions.
Moore said, though, that the mobile home park ordinance should be amended so that future councils don’t get into the same mess the city is in now.
