Hearing is today for input on design

By John Howell

A public hearing scheduled during today’s meeting of Batesville aldermen will allow comment on proposed design standards for manufactured homes in the city.

The hearing will come during the last meeting of the mayor and aldermen scheduled for 2011. The design standards address roof pitch, roofing materials, siding, underpinning, minimum lot sizes and placement on lots.

The hearing is the next step following the Batesville Planning Commission’s approval for the design standards and its recommendation that aldermen adopt the standards. The city’s zoning code has not previously addressed manufactured home design standards, Batesville Code Administrator Pam Comer said.

The language for the design standards stated that they “shall be applied to replacement of existing mobile homes and for the placement of new manufactured homes within the city limits of Batesville.”

“Mobile homes” were built prior to 1976, Comer said. They became “manufactured homes” in 1976 when they were built to meet wiring codes and other building inspection criteria, Comer said.

Other business listed on the agenda of the city’s final scheduled 2011 meeting includes discussion of land for a fire department training facility. Fire Chief Tim Taylor in November requested that four acres of city land located at the wastewater treatment facility on Panola Avenue be set aside to allow the fire department to build training structures using the large metal containers used to transport goods by truck, rail and ships.

The fire chief told the mayor and aldermen that a training tower and a structure that would allow simulated smoke rescue conditions could be built from several containers using a $50,000 bequest left to the fire department by the late Elizabeth Florence.

Representatives of Tri-Lakes Medical Center will return to Tuesdays meeting in ongoing negotiations to buy property for medical offices, Mayor Jerry Autrey said. Tri-Lakes CEO Wes Sigler first visited the October 18 meeting of the city board and asked for prices on up to eight acres of city-owned land located to the east of the present hospital facility. Price negotiations have been the subject of several executive session by the mayor and aldermen during ensuing weeks.