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9 <br /> Orange County Board of Commissioners <br /> Page 2 <br /> February 25, 1997 <br /> 40, 000 square feet) . The County tax records indicate that the <br /> following improvements are located on the property: 1 residence, <br /> 1 garage and 20 mobile home spaces . The property is in many ways <br /> a "nonconforming use" under the Zoning Ordinance. <br /> According to the former owner of the property, several years <br /> ago the number of mobile homes in the mobile home park was <br /> reduced from 20 to 15 . Thereafter, spaces were reduced as septic <br /> system problems occurred. The former owner is not certain about <br /> the precise timing of the attrition of the mobile home spaces . <br /> What he is certain about, however, is that there were no more <br /> than 10 spaces by the end of 1995 and at no time during the <br /> entirety of 1996 were the spaces that were vacated prior to 1995 <br /> occupied by mobile homes . And, so far as I have been able to <br /> determine, none of the spaces vacated prior to the end of 1995 <br /> has been occupied since it was vacated. <br /> Sections 6 .21 .1 and 11 . 9 of the Orange County Zoning <br /> Ordinance control mobile home parks that preexisted zoning <br /> regulations . The Zoning Ordinance generally requires that the <br /> density of mobile home parks located in an R-1 zoning district be <br /> 40, 000 square feet per unit or greater. Existing mobile home <br /> parks which do not meet that density requirement cannot expand in <br /> any way. Mobile homes are allowed to be removed and replaced <br /> within these nonconforming parks provided the total number of <br /> units does not exceed the number existing at the time that the <br /> mobile home park became nonconforming and provided that the <br /> existing waste treatment system is functioning properly. <br /> Section 11 . 9 of the Zoning Ordinance related generally to <br /> nonconforming land uses involving major structures or structures <br /> and premises in combination, restates the idea that individual <br /> mobile homes within nonconforming mobile home parks may be <br /> replaced with other individual mobile homes or dwelling units <br /> provided that the total number of units does not exceed the <br /> number existing at the time the mobile home park became non- <br /> conforming. That provision, allowing mobile home replacement, is <br /> limited by the fact that Section 11 .9 states that if a non- <br /> conforming use ceases for more than 180 days in any two year <br /> period, subsequent use shall conform to the density (and other) <br /> regulations in the district where it is located. <br /> In administering these provisions of the Zoning Ordinance, <br /> the Planning Department views the entire mobile home park as non- <br /> conforming and each of the units prompting the nonconformity as <br /> nonconforming. That means that any mobile home space that is <br /> vacated for 180 days in any two year period must remain vacant as <br /> long as the overall mobile home park density exceeds the zoning <br />