Johnson County passes on code that could help troubled Regency mobile home park

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday again talked about a property code concerning Regency Mobile Home Park, again argued about it and again passed on moving forward with regulations.

It's been pretty much the same story for the past year.

On Wednesday, the five supervisors, meeting in a work session, gauged whether a majority of them were interested in approving a property maintenance code that would give the county the authority to require repairs to nuisance properties. Three of them could not agree on the same thing, however.

It's something the county first started talking about nearly two years ago in response to ongoing problems with poor living conditions at Regency Mobile Home Park south of Iowa City.

A year ago, the Board of Supervisors had a public hearing on a property maintenance code at which hundreds of rural residents, many of them farmers, turned out in opposition, saying they didn't want the county telling them what they had to do with their property.

Supervisors Sally Stutsman, Terrence Neuzil and Pat Harney then said they wanted to exempt owner-occupied housing from regulations.

The county has since moved on to a rental housing code and will have a public hearing on that Feb. 9.

But many mobile homes are owner occupied, not rentals, so the rental code would hold little sway over mobile home parks like Regency.

A month ago, Harney said he was interested in looking at a property maintenance code. He said Wednesday that's still the case and he “can't see turning our backs on something like Regency,” but he wants to exempt farm houses.

Rod Sullivan and Janelle Rettig support a property maintenance code but do not want exemptions for farm houses, so there was not a majority of the board willing to move forward, which effectively killed the property maintenance code for now.

In a debate that has at times led to heated exchanges between the supervisors, Rettig characterized it this way: “We have three votes that turned their backs on Regency.”

Neuzil took issue with that and noted private organizations have been helping out at Regency and Johnson County's Board of Health has updated its nuisance regulations on things like abandoned properties.

Those rules require properties to be safe and free of vermin, but they do not allow the county to act if a place is simply an eyesore. And Rettig said they don't have any power on safety hazards inside a home.

“I think there are other opportunities that residents can pursue,” Neuzil said.

Assistant County Attorney Susan Nehring said public health officials have told her Regency's management has been responsive to concerns like removing abandoned trailers.

Rettig said the work is being done without a permit, which is illegal.

“I don't think we can use the words ‘responsible' and ‘Regency' in the same sentence,” Sullivan said.

Regency is run by Regency of Iowa Inc., whose corporate owner is the Churchill Group, based in Carbondale, Colo. Company officials have been unresponsive to requests for comment in the past two years.