St. Cloud Taking Over Licensing Manufactured Home Parks

ST. CLOUD -- The city of St. Cloud is taking over the licensing and inspections of manufactured home parks. They are currently regulated by the Minnesota Department of Health.

City Health Director Matt O'Brien says the change is being made because of increasing complaints at the three parks in the city's limits over the past year.

Right now, under city ordinance, city staff can respond to complaints regarding individuals' homes and their owners, but not the park as a whole.

Taking on this delegation agreement allows us to write certain violations to the park owners and management who have more resources and more responsibility for those types of violations. This essentially increases our tools to get these things addressed.

O'Brien says the whole idea is to better help the people living in the park by having someone local they can turn to for help.

O'Brien says a trend recently is homes that are owned by the park that are rented out. A state Statute makes it difficult for cities to license rental properties in these parks, due to dual licensing, making them essentially unregulated.

Taking on this delegation agreement allows us to integrate that into the licensure to make sure that the people living in these homes have someone else walking through there and helping them get a safe place to live.

The delegation agreement with MDH would be an expansion of what is already in place which allows the city to license and regulate food, pool, and lodging establishments.