The action was taken last week in response to concerns that the area would be "flooded" with such buildings, which several local officials have characterized as substandard for housing purposes. Tens of thousands of the buildings are being sold cheaply at auction.
"Until we clarify the legal issues, we're going to stop all permitting on what is commonly referred to as 'FEMA trailers,'" said Lee Lemoine, chief building official with RAPC, after receiving an opinion from the Rapides Parish District Attorney's office Friday.
"FEMA trailers" is a name given to manufactured buildings used by FEMA to temporarily house disaster evacuees. "Temporary" is the word that most concerns local officials.
"These were never meant to be used for permanent housing," said David Butler, mayor of Woodworth and chairman of RAPC. "The intent was for them to be temporary housing until people could return to their homes."
In a controversial decision this year, though, the federal government decided to sell most of the 120,000 trailers it bought to house Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Most were bought by big auction operations, chopped into smaller lots and sold to smaller operations.
Some such trailers have started filtering into Central Louisiana, and several local officials fear it's just a matter of time before more and more appear. Lemoine inspected several that have been placed on property on Iles Road in Wardville Friday.
"I think the general public should be rightfully concerned about this," Butler said. "If this area is going to be inundated with these type of FEMA trailers and people are going to use them for housing or rentals, I don't think that's a direction we need to go in, and I think you will mostly see the people of Rapides Parish saying the same thing."
"If someone wants to use this for a camp, I have no problem with that," said Richard Billings, a Rapides Parish Police Juror and member of RAPC. "But if you're going to buy them to start a trailer park, we can't have that."
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