PARKERSBURG –- The owner and operator of a Wood County mobile home park are challenging the legality of provisions to the county's flood plain ordinance.
The Wood County Commission is named in a three-count lawsuit in Wood Circuit Court by Marcie D .Weyer and Tomar Rentals. In their complaint filed Aug. 9, Weyer and Tomar allege the county is prohibiting them from placing new units on land previously approved for development.
According to the suit, Tomar operates the Meadowbrook Acres Mobile Home Park in Lubek on two tracts of land leased from Weyer. Since September 1999, they've operated Meadowbrook under the existing flood plain ordinance.
On July 14, they received a letter from Ed Hupp, the county's flood plain manager, informing them that two new homes placed on previously developed lots violated the county's ordinance. In the letter, Hupp stated that any new unit had to be "developed six to eight feet above the access road to the mobile home park" and have an engineer and licensed home installer approve each new unit.
Because the Commission failed to adopt a "non-conforming grandfather provision" to revisions of the ordinance since 1999, Weyer and Tomar allege the Commission's prohibiting them from adding the new units "constitutes an inverse condemnation." Subsequently, the inverse condemnation "constitutes an unconstitutional taking of property without just compensation in violation of Section 9, Article III of the West Virginia Constitution."
Weyer and Tomar are asking the court to declare the ordinance unconstitutional, and issue an injunction prohibiting its enforcement. They are represented by Timothy J. LaFon with the Charleston law firm of Ciccarello, Del Guidice and LaFon.
The case is assigned to Judge J.D. Beane.
Wood Circuit Court, case number 10-C-345
Mobile home park owner challenges Wood flood plain ordinance
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