Winton to address blight and mobile homes

Big issues for the City of Winton appear to be blight and mobile home regulation.The city’s comprehensive land use plan will attempt to address those and other issues identified in resident surveys, steering committee recommendations and at an open house held Wednesday.The City of Winton has been working with the Arrowhead Regional Development Commission to put forth a comprehensive land use plan. The goal of this plan is to provide Winton guidelines and enforcement clout in guiding future development or redevelopment within the city limits.A community survey was distributed in March, 2003 to 90 residents of which 39 responded. The responses showed residents’ major concerns are the prevalence of mobile homes located throughout the community in a disorganized fashion, appearance of people’s property, and the enforcement of zoning ordinances.Sixty-five percent of those responding also support a tax increase to pay for the enforcement of the zoning ordinance.The “blight” word came up a lot in the public open house meeting. Residents asked how blight would be defined and enforced. Mayor Lee Tessier said one example could be that the city sees that someone is not maintaining their lawn. The city would cut it for them then charge them on their tax bill like Ely does.Tessier said enforcement of the blight ordinance is “one of those tough decisions that someone has to make.”The Draft Housing Chapter of the comprehensive plan says action steps to addressing blight would be to “create and enforce a blight ordinance to provide strict, enforceable guidelines that limit blighting influences. Establish sufficiently costly penalties for violation of a blight ordinance... Establish an annual Community Beautification Campaign associated with annual community events.”Definitions of blight causes in the draft plan are junk automobiles, automobile graveyards, junk, abandoned motor vehicles, and nuisance.The nuisance category says a nuisance is “anything injurious to health, or indecent or offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property.” Some disagreement surfaced during the presentation of the mobile home draft ordinance. According to Minnesota state law, there is no difference between a mobile home and a manufactured home. Tessier disagrees. But Rudy Schoolderman, ARDC Senior Planner, said if you ever have to take a case to court, the law will not support a difference.Winton City Clerk, Anne Jackson said, “Are you telling us we have to have a mobile home area?” Schoolderman said, “It’s hard to give a direct and straight answer on that. In general the best approach is to designate a mobile home park.” The city also wants guidelines and time frames built into the language for new construction ordinances and permits. Everyone agreed there isn’t much land within the city limits for new construction. Instead, new construction would probably occur where an existing house has been condemned.The most popular ideas for the use of the city-owned old hospital grounds are building an assisted living facility or having a public park/playground area. Other ideas were for subsidized or market rate senior housing, a community center, or other housing options.People were asked what should be done with the old Winton jail located northwest of the park. Responses ranged from tearing it down to creating an historic landmark and museum.Responses to the survey of why residents like living in Winton included: • I like living near the river and having places to walk;• For the most part its small town quaintness and beauty and historical ties with the lakes and woods;• It’s a close community and a friendly attractive little town;When asked to describe their vision of Winton 10 years from now, residents said:• A nice place to raise kids, good safe places to play;• Clean and neat and take pride in one’s property;• I will be in the ground by then, so I won’t worry about that;• Winton needs a coffee shop.