During Tuesday’s Piedmont City Council meeting, city officials were met with a group of residents voicing their disapproval of a recent vote to allow a mobile home to be placed in their neighborhood.
Kenny Holbrooks, who lives near in the Gnatville Road neighborhood, spoke on behalf of the residents, arguing that the mobile home has no business being placed in that neighborhood as all of the other homes are brick.
“You put a mobile home in and it’ll depreciate the value of our homes,” Holbrooks said, adding “You all voted on this in just a few minutes at the last meeting and didn’t talk to us and we are pissed off.”
After some lengthy discussion, the council agreed to work to correct the issue.
However, Mayor Bill Baker said that he was told that the couple who is installing the mobile home had already put money down on both the home and the property. It was at this point that the council decided to seek legal advice from the city attorney before taking any action on the matter.
“I’m willing to fix it, but I want to fix it right,” said Council Member Doug Dickeson.
Council Member Bobby Hardin said that in the future, he would like to see the council follow a process that complies with the city’s zoning laws.
City Clerk Michelle Franklin noted that the reason that such a process hasn’t been followed in recent years, was due to the previous administration enacting a moratorium, requiring the locating of mobile homes within the city to be decided by the council on a case by case basis.
In other business, several abatement measures were approved, which include cutting the grass and placing a lien on an abandoned 1st Avenue property, in addition to two properties on Allison Street.
The council approved a 10-year lease for Head Start to locate in the Bethune Community Center. The lease approval clears the way for Head Start to potentially invest over $100,000 worth of improvements to the building in order to provide quality early childhood and pre-kindergarten services to the children of Piedmont.
Tiffany Hendon was appointed to fill a vacancy on the park board.
Bills for payment were approved in the amount of $364,334.90.
The next regular Piedmont City Council Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 2nd, following the work session, which is set for 5:30pm.