Opinion ID: 2555013
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Subdivision Road

Text: [¶ 11] Based on the CEO's testimony at the hearing, the court found that the road in Barnett's subdivision was classified by the Town's Road Construction Ordinance as a private major road. As such, the Ordinance required that the road be paved to a width of twenty feet, and that [t]he centerline of the roadway . . . be the centerline of the right-of-way. Vassalboro, Me., Road Construction Ordinance § VI(G), (I) (June 3, 1989). The CEO testified that at the time of the hearing, despite having received three notices of the road's deficiencies, Barnett had not paved the road, and its centerline was an average of six to eight feet out of alignment with its right-of-way. [¶ 12] Barnett contends that the Ordinance is not applicable because his subdivision is a mobile home park. He received a state license for a nine-lot manufactured housing community on March 23, 2009, almost three years after his application for a regular ten-lot subdivision was approved by the Board. Based on that license, he maintains that the road is exempted from the Ordinance's road construction requirements by 30-A M.R.S. § 4358(3)(F) (2010), which provides, Except as provided by paragraph G, municipal road standards shall not apply to private roads within a mobile home park unless the developer intends to offer the roads to the municipality for acceptance as town ways. The Town concedes that the subdivision road was not intended to be offered for acceptance as a town way. [¶ 13] As an initial matter, even if Barnett was correct in asserting that the subdivision is a mobile home park, he is still in violation of 30-A M.R.S. § 4358(3)(G)(2) (2010), which provides that [a] municipality may require by ordinance or rule that privately owned roads within a mobile home park . . . [h]ave a right-of-way up to 23 feet in width, 20 feet of which the municipality may require to be paved. Barnett argues that the Town has no ordinance or rules concerning privately owned roads within a mobile home park, but he also agrees that [i]t is undisputed and there is no question that in the Town of Vassalboro, the creation of a mobile home park is also the creation of a subdivision needing approval under the Subdivision Ordinance. The paving requirements imposed by the Road Construction Ordinance for private major roads in a subdivision are equally applicable to a subdivision that is further classified as a mobile home park. [¶ 14] Regardless, we agree with the Town that Barnett's subdivision is not a mobile home park. By statute, a mobile home park is a parcel of land under unified ownership approved by the municipality for the placement of 3 or more manufactured homes. 30-A M.R.S. § 4358(1)(B) (2010). The CEO testified at the hearing that the subdivision was approved for either mobile homes or stick-built homes, and that of the ten lots in the subdivision, two preexisting stick-built homes are located on lot one, two new stick-built homes are located on lots four and six, and all of the lots could eventually be used for stick-built homes. Accordingly, although the subdivision was approved by the Town in a way that allowed mobile homes, it was not approved specifically for mobile homes. [¶ 15] Furthermore, although the trial court did not explicitly so find, it could have concluded from the evidence that Barnett had offered lots in the subdivision for sale, and therefore did not intend for the subdivision to remain under unified ownership. Finally, the fact that Barnett did not obtain a mobile home park license from the State for nearly three years after the Board approved his subdivision application, and then received the license only after the Town filed its land use complaint, supports a conclusion that neither Barnett nor the Town thought a mobile home park was under consideration at the time the subdivision was approved.