Click on photo to enlarge
Steven Cannone - Photo by ANDREW MOORE/Andrew@dailyjm.com
Click on photo to enlarge
The charred remains of this mobile home sit directly beside a local business on Stamp Creek Road. There are 5,648 mobile homes valued at less than $5,000 on record in Oconee County, Building Code Director Channon Chambers said. Photo by Andrew Moore/Staff
SALEM — Cannone’s Pizza, a small independently owned restaurant, sits in a quiet neighborhood on Stamp Creek Road just outside the city limits of Salem. Yet the quaint charm of Steven Cannone’s business is immediately contrasted by another sight, just adjacent to his property. The dilapidated, burned remnants of several abandoned mobile homes are hurting business, Cannone said.
“It affects our business quite a bit,” he said. “People won’t stop in because they see that. At first they thought we were tied into that next door. Now they just see it, and they don’t want to stop in because it is a blemish. No matter how much we do to this place here, people are seeing those things too. I’ve had people tell me they’ve passed by a few times, but they’re afraid to come in.”
The mobile homes, which were not up to code in the first place, became unsalvageable when a fire ripped through them in the winter of 2007. Since then the woman owning one of the mobile homes has tried to remove some of the items not completely consumed in the fire, but to date, nothing has been done to eliminate the eyesores, Cannone said.
AFFORDABILITY OF REMOVAL
As often happens in situations involving abandoned mobile homes, the owners of the units on Stamp Creek Road cannot afford to tear down the remains, whether Oconee County tells them to or not.
Channon Chambers, Building Codes director for the county, said that while he attempts to view every situation in black and white terms of compliance or non-compliance of code, practicality is an issue.
“It is a matter of money,” Chambers said. “We could condemn every single mobile home that is abandoned or not up to code. But then, what do you do with them?”
Oconee didn’t even have code enforcement until 1999, Chambers said, putting the department at a disadvantage in dealing with such problems.
“We were pretty late in getting in the game,” Chambers said.
County building code protocol leaves many situations, such as the one on Stamp Creek Road, in limbo. Code enforcement officers can advise owners that they are not in compliance, they can offer multiple warnings, they can condemn and ultimately issue orders for abatement, but after that point, enforcement becomes problematic — and expensive.
Removal of condemned and abandoned mobile homes, like any other service, costs. Chambers said tearing apart a mobile home generally costs between $200 to $400 per side. A small reduction in costs would come in money produced from recycling some of the material in the mobile home. Ordering a person to demolish his or her own mobile home is an expensive proposition, one Chambers said is often simply unrealistic.
“The problem really comes down to the point where a person just cannot afford to do it,” said Ronald Butts, code enforcement officer.
FORMULATING A SOLUTION
Chambers is trying to develop a program to alleviate the problem that would pool money into a fund constituted of portions of building permit fee and mobile home fee dollars. Another idea, he said, would be to increase the mobile home fee from $30 to $55 per home.
In a presentation at the last Oconee County Council meeting, Chambers outlined the problem of abandoned mobile homes, and the need for a solution. While council members acknowledged that blight on local properties was indeed a problem, no specific avenues for funding were addressed.
Chambers believes the most practical and beneficial plan would see Oconee taking a more active, hands-on approach to the issue.
“It very well may be in the county’s interest to foot the bill,” Chambers said. “Or at least part of the bill.”
There are 5,648 mobile homes valued under $5,000 on record in Oconee, and as Chambers sees it, their popularity is understandable. With many contractors and developers focusing their attention to high-end, expensive houses in lakefront communities, Chambers said there simply was not much incentive for many contractors to invest time and money into building affordable homes for lower-middle class people. Those wanting inexpensive housing and choosing not to rent often turn to mobile homes in an local economic culture that has a drastic discrepancy between the average person’s earning capacity and the average house price. While the median household income in the county is roughly $39,000 annually, Chambers’ statistics show the median house cost in the county is about $305,000.
THE REAL COST OF EYESORES
While mobile homes aren’t going away, the problem of abandoned units becoming eyesores is real and damaging, Cannone said.
“It is hurting my business and keeping people from stopping by,” Cannone said. “And it’s also hurting me long-term because this will bring my property value down. If someone wants to sell their property down the road, that’s going to hurt them.”
Protecting property value, as well as providing a poor representation of the area as suitors to potential businesses, are prime reasons to take action, Chambers said.
“If someone is showing this county to someone looking to do business here and he sees those things, it’s going to be tougher to bring business in,” he said.
Those consequences of eyesores dotting Oconee do not just affect this generation but will also have an impact on future generations as well. Chambers said if blight makes it more difficult to bring in industry, the children of today will suffer when they are looking for jobs years from now.
“The county needs to develop a program to give the public some recourse,” Chambers said.
Meanwhile, all Cannone can do is wait and hope for someone to do something about the charred remnants near his restaurant. Even he admits the problem does not carry with it an easy solution.
“I really couldn’t tell you what to do,” Cannone said. “I don’t know what they can do, but if they could enforce some things, that’d be nice. This is county area zoning. It’s not in any city. If the county could do something, it would help out quite a bit. I can’t imagine anyone else being able to do something about it. That is the only way I see to fix it.”
Chambers continues to try and formulate solutions to what he said is a serious problem.
“We’ve got to invest in the future,” he said. “That is really what this boils down to.”
Home
Discuss story 
iPod friendly version
Comments
Readers are solely responsible for the content of the comments they post here. Comments are subject to the site's terms and conditions of use and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or approval of Eagle Media. Readers whose comments violate the terms of use may have their comments removed or all of their content blocked from viewing by other users without notification.You need to give the scrap to someone just to haul it off. There are alot of people that would tear them down free of charge just for the scrap.
If having no abandoned mobile homes next to his business is such a valuable asset you would think the business owner would be willing to spend a few business expense dollars to pay for removal of the offensive homes. With the amount of business he says he is missing, it sounds to me like a few clean up dollars would be a very wise investment. Or could it be that his non-local customers look down their noses at the bones of poverty that are so prevalent in the up state area? In the past, with cotton mill slave wages, a mobile home was about all a local family could afford. Many excellent families were raised in them. The up state soil is stained red from the blood, sweat and tears of the hard working local people. If your gated community dwelling bigots can not stand the sight of the local peoples' history, tell them to move on, no one will miss them.
tamasseeknob, is that what you would do? Would you spend your hard earned dollars to clean up someone else's mess? Are you saying it would not bother you if condemned property were located next to you, affecting YOUR property values? Talk is cheap when you are not the one who is affected. Blighted property hurts ALL of us. Perhaps poverty would not be so prevalent if more effort was made to clean up this county and put the mechanisms in place to attract industry and tourism. Finally, your last statement sadly reflects your own bigotry. Perhaps you, like myself, just wish that you could afford to live in one of those gated communities.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
I know the Cannone family personally, and I agree that this is an eyesore. I have lived in this area all my life. I have always been a part of a low-middle income family. I do not believe that the non-local customers look down their noses at us, as I have met many of them. Most of them are very nice people and I believe that most locals and non-locals alike would agree that this is a problem. I do not believe that it should be the job of a neighbor to have to spend thier money to clean up someone else's mess. It is up to the county to decide a means of removal for these homes and provide a cleaner and attractive community.
I'm with Tamasseeknob. This is a business decision, not a lesson on responsibility. If you think the eyesore is costing you more in business than it would cost you to get rid of it, then just pay to get it hauled off. Approach the owner and work something out. Maybe they can't afford to haul it off, but maybe they'll let you put up a sign in their yard or something if you pay to haul it (or some other thing that would help your business), or maybe they would chip in a little bit if you would make up the difference.
Sure, it's their responsibility and they should pay the whole cost, but don't let the best be the enemy of the good.
Once again, it's a matter of someone moving into a neighborhood that didn't bother them enough to prevent them from moving in but now are trying to change the neighborhood. Those trailers have been there forever and they knew they were there before they put their business there.
Sorry, but its not the business owner's resposiblity to clean up his neighbor's mess. These aren't just run down mobile homes, they are burned out shells. And they have not been there forever. They were junkers when they were pulled in there. I grew up in a mobile home in a cotton mill, too, but we always kept it clean and liveable. The county should condemn the property and offer it to highest bidder.
The business owner cannont get rid of it as it is not on his property.
If the county council would get off their "council seats" and get some ordinances in place that address these issues, they could easily be taken care of. What could you possibly salvage from these old mobile homes? Give the owners a written warning (one warning, not ten) that they must remove these rat traps and if they don't do it within a certain time period, the county should burn them and haul what is left to the land fill. It's called controled burning. It used to be done all the time. It would take 2 firemen, one firetruck and a couple of county dump trucks and I just can't see where that would cost so much. There are many mobile homes that are partially burned or just sitting there falling apart in this county as well as houses. Also, the key to any law or ordinance is ENFORCEMENT! They are not worth the paper they are written on if they are not enforced. I have travelled around this county for years on my job and have seen many, many eyesores. I could point out each and everyone of them. And, yes I am a native Oconeean. I have lived here all my life and I don't like too see all these ugly sights any more than anyone else. It is up to the county to handle this problem. They are going to have to take matters into their own hands because evidentally the owners of these are not worried about it. Why should they be? Nobody is doing anthing about it anyway.
Post your comment
Commenting requires free upstatetoday.com registration.