For The Times & Free Press

Recommendations to create a mobile home neighborhood district and other mobile home districts will soon be on the Hennessey Planning Board’s agenda.

That’s after the Hennessey Board of Trustees voted unanimously to get the planning board’s advice during its meeting last Thursday.

The board discussed the need due to limited single family houses, climbing construction costs, and after an attempt to deliver a double-wide mobile home Sept. 2 into a residential area not zoned for mobile homes.

Half of the double-wide was already on the property and the other half on a semi-truck flatbed at Arapaho and Nebraska streets when it was stopped by Town Administrator Tiffany Tillman.

Saloman Pardo Jr. of Hennessey had hired an Oklahoma City company to deliver the double- wide to his property.

Tillman told him that afternoon he couldn’t put the mobile home there because he didn’t have a permit.

Permit denied in 2020

Tillman said Pardo had applied for a permit in 2020 (the year zoning updates were made) and it was “denied due to it being a manufactured home in an area zoned for residential single family homes.”

Pardo had not applied for a permit this year, Tillman said.

If a permit is denied, then he could go to the planning board for a “use and review hearing,” and the surrounding neighbors would be notified they could attend and protest, if they wanted

Police called in

According to a police report, Pardo continued to argue there were two other trailers on that street after Tillman and the officer explained “several times they were grandfathered in.”

Both told him those trailers were there before new zoning laws were approved, the officer wrote in his report.

When Tillman called the town’s attorney, John Wynne of Enid, “I suggested she direct the police there,” said Wynne during the September trustee meeting.

“I kinda panicked” Pardo said.

“I just wanted to store it there (on Nebraska Street),” Pardo told trustees.

Pardo told the board he was under a court order to immediately get the double- wide off the property where he’d kept it earlier, “and I kinda panicked. I want to apologize to Tiffany. She was just doing her job.

“I plan to brick the whole thing. I’m going to do it the right way,” said Pardo, a 1997 Hennessey graduate who also told the board he has lived in Hennessey for 40 years.

Tillman said someone could ask for a “use (of property) on review hearing” and ask the Planning Board for permission to put a mobile home there.

All of the neighbors in that area would be mailed a letter telling them they could appear at the hearing, and protest it if they want. She added that the board would probably agree with the majority of the homeowners.

Moved outside town limits

Pardo later told the officer he had permission from a town board member to store the double-wide at Eagle Wire Line outside the town limits, according to the police report.

Trustee Harold Shaw told the Times and Free Press after the board meeting that he’d come up on the trucks blocking Arapaho and Nebraska on his way home, and then agreed to let the mobile home be parked on his property outside of town.

New zoning laws in 2020

Shaw asked how townspeople are supposed to know when laws are changed? He couldn’t find anything on his property plat that shows his zoning, and said people should be notified by mail if there are changes in the zoning instead of just having it posted at Town Hall, or on web pages.

Wynne said the law requires only that it be published.

Shaw said not everyone goes online, or into Town Hall.

No affordable housing

Young couples just married and with a child on the way can’t afford the “$500 to $1,000” rent in town, but they can afford to buy a mobile home, Shaw said.

Wynne said houses in many towns are “almost unaffordable,” and other towns have been more tolerant in allowing “residential structures built offsite.”

Shaw said he lives on the west side of town and there are some trailer houses in that area that are in bad shape, and there is “no way that 40 to 50-year-old trailer houses” have any fire insurance on them.

He also said current mobile home parks in town should be inspected to make sure they “are up to code.”

Language barriers

Shaw told Wynne that 40 percent of the town population is Hispanic.

“Some don’t read English well, and the town needs to do a better job with letting them know what’s going on.”

Wynne agreed, and said other towns are also working on that.

Building rules questioned

Trustee David Jones asked why “dust-free parking lots” are required at the “north construction?” (Howdy Truck Plaza north of S.H. 51 on the west side of U.S. 81.)

Dust-free requires it be paved, and not rocked, the audience was told.

Jones said he sees no reason for it since it’s surrounded by wheat fields, and only semi trucks would be in that parking area.

“Some towns have allowed slurry seal as an alternative with a five-10 year life,” said Wynne. “But it would only last about a year with those semi trucks.”

It was also pointed out that other businesses in that area are required to have paved roads.

Jones said he’d ordered a barn shed, and figured he had to apply for a building permit. When he did, it was not approved because it didn’t meet international building codes “according to some engineering company.”

They denied it because it used 2x4s instead of 2x6s, said Jones, who went on the board in the spring.

“We no longer use them (Institute for Building Technology and Safety),” said Tillman.

Jones said he was later disapproved for a permit to put a 1,500 foot building in his backyard.

“I thought I had enough room for it, but found out I was limited to a 1,000 foot building.”

He said it only cost him $100 to find out.

Shaw said repairs need to be made to the west side of the pavilion at the cemetery “since someone was good enough to donate it to the town.”

At the meeting

Trustees at the meeting were Vice Mayor Clif Vogt, Gritz, Shaw and Jones. Absent was Trustee Richard Simunek. Town Clerk Kati Walters served as minutes clerk.

Tillman and Wynne were the only staff.

In the audience were Cindy Evans, Shelley Alvardo, Lucy Renteria and Pardo.