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Author: Richard Stradling; Staff Writer Edition: Final Abandoned mobile homes are becoming as common as old tobacco barns in parts of North Carolina but with one big difference -- single-wides lack rustic charm. Local officials have asked the mobile home industry to help devise ways to rid the countryside of a growing form of blight. The N.C. Association of County Commissioners estimates that 40,000 derelict mobile homes lurk in the state's woods and fields. "This is an economic development issue," said Paul Meyer, assistant general counsel for the association. "If a county brings in a prospective employer and they see essentially abandoned homes strewn about, it doesn't make a very good impression." Harnett County alone has an estimated 2,000 uninhabitable mobile homes, said Planning Director George Jackson. Even if people had some place to take them, many are so deteriorated that they're no longer road-worthy, Jackson said. "The easy way out is to just put them out of the way and leave them," he said. "And when you have thousands of people doing that, then that becomes a problem." Harnett, along with Onslow and Burke counties, was chosen for a test cleanup program put together by the commissioners association and the N.C. Manufactured Housing Institute, a trade group. This winter, the counties will pay contractors to collect and dismantle a small number of mobile homes and recycle whatever parts they can. The glut of empty trailers stems in part from the popularity of mobile homes. Mobile homes account for nearly one in five North Carolina households, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In Harnett, mobile homes shelter nearly a third of households. Estimates of the number of abandoned homes may be too high, said Brad Lovin, director of government affairs for the industry trade group. Lovin thinks many of the homes that get counted are actually occupied. "Homes that some people would call uninhabitable, people are living in there," he said. "That's just the sad state of rural North Carolina." The industry helped with the cleanup program, Meyer said, in part to stave off legislation that would tax manufactured housing dealers to help counties pay to dispose of mobile homes. A bill introduced last spring by Rep. Phillip Haire, a Democrat from Sylva, would have charged dealers $500 to $1,000 for each new or used mobile home sold. Also, for an industry that now prides itself on selling homes that appear stick-built, with pitched roofs and front porches, the old metal boxes are an embarrassment. "That's not what we're building today," Lovin said. "If we can help clean up these older homes, it will help our image." Meyer said the county commissioners association will decide after the test program whether to back a disposal fee or other legislation. The program is modest; the industry put up $15,000, matched with $30,000 from the counties. But both sides hope it will be enough to learn how to handle the homes, including hauling and disposal costs, and how counties should take title to them. Harnett officials have targeted more than a dozen derelict trailers along N.C. 87 between Sanford and Fayetteville, where they would like to see more development. Unsure who owns the homes, they sent letters to 210 property owners along the road in early December offering to remove the homes at no cost. They had three takers as of the deadline Wednesday and plan to go door-to-door to solicit more. John Roberts doesn't want to part with the single-wide in front of his home on N.C. 87, even though it has been empty for three years. Roberts said he keeps it just in case a family member wants to live in it but also fears that if he removes it, he might have a hard time getting a permit to put a home there in the future. "I think we need to hold on to that spot," said Roberts, 43, owner of Roberts Grading and Landscaping. Counties' initiatives A few counties have come up with their own programs for old mobile homes. Scotland County uses a junked-car law to order people to remove empty mobile homes, which are often titled like cars. The county also accepts trailers at a landfill, where workers cut them apart and separate the recyclable steel and aluminum. "If you take off the siding and the frame and so forth, I'd say about 40 percent is recyclable," said Steve Edge, the county public works director. The owners must pay to bring the home to the landfill, at a cost of hundreds of dollars, as well as the landfill fee, which averages $217 for a single-wide. The county, which has dismantled more than 100 homes since 1997, breaks even, Edge said. Brunswick County collects and dismantles old mobile homes for free, using existing staff and equipment. The coastal county has recycled more than 500 mobile homes since 2000. County officials aren't sure what the program costs taxpayers, said County Manager Marty Lawing, but they say it helps make a better impression for tourists and encourages redevelopment. Lawing said several homes have risen on lots cleared of old trailers. "We see this as an investment in the future of the county," he said. But Meyer, the lawyer for the county commissioners association, said many counties can't afford to clean up mobile homes on their own. "The counties shouldn't really be left holding the bag on that," he said. Caption:
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