Lang
2/6/25
A recent three-day water outage at the Modern Manor manufactured housing community led to the Johnson County Board of Supervisors debating what it can do to prevent such incidents in the future.
Modern Manor residents reported losing water service on January 19th. The park’s owners…Havenpark Communities…reported fixing a broken water pump, but water service did not return until January 21st. Havenpark reimbursed residents who were forced to find other lodging.
The supervisors have limited options for dealing with such situations, and state laws regarding mobile home parks take precedence over local ordinances. The board considered a resolution at Wednesday’s meeting that would call on the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to remind the owners of mobile home parks to live up to their legal obligations. The county would also consider water preparedness plans, a change to its permitting process, and even possibly using grant money to purchase mobile home parks in the future.
The last proposal caused the most division among the supervisors, with Lisa Green-Douglass arguing that the county doesn’t have the capacity to manage mobile home parks.
Several supervisors also questioned if a resolution was good enough, as opposed to passing whatever ordinances it could.
The board ultimately decided to shelve the resolution, but add parts of it to future work session agendas.