Troup County Commissioners will consider changes to the county’s requirements for placing mobile or manufactured homes on properties that is expected to streamline the process.

Currently, any request to place a manufactured home on property has to go before the County Board of Planning and Zoning Appeals and County Commission, including replacing a unit on a property where a manufactured home once stood, but may have been destroyed by fire or other causes. County Engineer James Emery proposed a “streamlined” process where staff could approve any requests that meet set criteria for placement, and if further review is needed, the decision would be given to the planning board.

The current process takes about eight weeks, Emery said.

“Standards evolved to a point where they really are about the same now as for stick-built homes,” Emery said, comparing the manufacturing standards of mobile homes to traditional houses. “When a mobile home is located on a property in Troup County, it’s really the same standards as stick-built, so I really don’t feel we need to have any burdensome process for replacement.”

County Commissioner Richard English said he was uncomfortable taking the ultimate decision out of commissioners’ hands.

“I’ve been around long to see some stuff going on that never need to be taken out of the hands of the Board of Commissioners, because we’re elected by the constituents to look out for them,” he said. “Once you put it in the staff and all of that I’ve seen some drastic changes, so I’m against taking that out of the hands of the commissioners.”

Commission Chairman Ricky Wolfe suggested the new ordinance could still give commissioners the final say on placement of a new manufactured home, but allow the streamlined process for replacing one. Commissioner Ken Smith said he had no problem expediting the process to replace a manufactured home on a site where one was previously.

“If we’re just going to put something back that was already there, I don’t have a problem with that,” Smith said.

Commissioners tabled the revised ordinance. Troup County Planner Nancy Seegar said staff would rescind changes to new manufactured home placement so commissioners still have say, but continue with plans to allow the replacement process to be streamlined.

Commissioners will vote on the ordinance at a later meeting.

In other business Tuesday, commissioners:

•Approved allowing a personal care home at 8829 Hamilton Road near Pine Mountain for up to six residents;

•Approved placing an AT&T cell phone tower on Samples Road;

•Approved a budget amendment for court services for two reimbursement grants: $18,318 for DUI/drug court and $198,992 for felony adult drug court from the Georgia Accountability Court Funding Committee. The funds will be used to hire one part-time employee for case management, bring one part-time lab technician up to full time for in-house drug testing.

•Approved an agreement for airport planning assistance for the fifth phase of rights acquisitions for the LaGrange-Callaway Airport runway extension. The project includes $106,000 in federal funds, $5,000 in Georgia Department of Transportation funds and $5,000 in local funds;

•And approved changes to the county traffic control ordinance clarifying traffic enforcement at certain intersections.