I currently have a park in Tennessee under contract.
I requested a certificate of zoning from the Planning and Development department but they would only provide a letter of zoning.
The relevant sections read as follows:
The properties which compose the Mobile Home Park contain a mixture of legal nonconforming uses as it was constructed prior to the adoption of zoning or building codes.
After speaking with the Environmental Health Department, and in the absence of the any record to the contrary, staff is fairly confident that 55 units are established with nonconforming status and may continue to be used subject to the provisions of Article 5.
In addition, for the state of Tennessee I have been unable to find any information on whether any type of permit or license is required to operate a mobile home park. The seller has stated one is not required.
Is the letter of zoning sufficient?
Are they some states that do not require a permit or license?
I’d be comfortable with that zoning letter. There may be a county map that shows a pic of the property along with it’s zoning info/status. I’d try to find the agency that governs mhps and see if they can assist; and ask them to provide a letter as well. In IN it’s the Health Dept. - they were able to confirm that my park is properly zoned as a park and confirmed the amount of spaces in my park.
Looking at park in PA and found they have no requirement and referred back to local zoning which their reply was “we don’t have zoning issues that restrict mobile home parks.” Find it strange though. What if I wanted to put other parks in? There has to be some government big brother agency somewhere that controls that.
These small towns (without zoning ordinances) and outside larger city limits are where the junkyards, power plants, and MHP’s are allowed to be constructed today… unless you have the connections and money to work with the city’s zoning board for a favorable change inside corporate limits.