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Item Description: <br />��4 � 1 , 1 1 J <br />AUgUSt 11,ZOOS <br />Request for Council Direction I��r,�; 4, <br />Speed Humps in Mobile Home Parks? <br />L BACKGROUND <br />A resident of the mobile home park at Lexington and County C has asked the City to consider <br />requiring speed humps within mobile home parks. This is in response to a child being struck <br />by a car this year in that park. <br />The City Code does not require speed humps in mobile home parks, <br />To affect the situation in our existing mobile home park at Lexington and County C the <br />Council would have to amend the Code to require speed humps and then make that <br />amendment retroactive to existing mobile home parks. Presumably, the Council would give <br />the Park some period to install speed humps. Presumably, the Council would also ask the City <br />Engineer to develop specifications for such speed humps. <br />Before staff develops speed hump specifications for mobile home parks, asks the City Attorney <br />to draft an enforceable ordinance, and informs the mobile home park owners and residents, <br />staff needs policy direction about whether requiring speed humps in mobile home parks is an <br />issue the Council wants staff to pursue. <br />II. PROS AND CONS <br />A. PROS <br />The street system in mobile home parks is elementary. Sight distances and other safety factors <br />are typically not found on private mobile home park streets. Moreover, because it is <br />affordable housing, mobile home parks typically have many children who live and play in <br />close proximity to the street system there. Speed humps are successfully used in other private <br />street applications, such as ring roads at shopping malls. Speed humps would help lower <br />vehicle speed and, therefore, improve public safety. <br />B, CONS <br />Minnesota's snowy climate is not conducive to speed humps; plowing is made more difficult. <br />Moreover, the cost of the speed humps would be passed along to mobile home residents, <br />making these developments less affordable. There is no guarantee that the speed humps <br />would lower speeds and increase safety; they may encourage reckless driving, such as trying <br />to "catch air" by accelerating over the hump or driving to the side of the hump to avoid it with <br />one set of wheels. The residents knew the park had no speed humps when they moved in. <br />This is a private issue between the park and its residents, not a city issue. <br />