- Kentucky’s House Bill 160 prohibits cities from treating qualified manufactured homes differently than single-family homes in zoning regulations.
- Union conducted a first reading of an ordinance adopting Boone County zoning amendments to comply before the July 1 effective date.
- City officials say the change is state-mandated, largely administrative, and unlikely to significantly impact Union’s existing housing stock.
Union is the latest Kentucky city to comply with a law passed last year barring local governments from enforcing zoning rules that treat manufactured homes differently than single-family homes.
Manufactured homes are prefabricated housing that is produced in factories and then transported to sites for use, as opposed to homes built directly on a lot.
In 2025, the Kentucky General Assembly enacted House Bill 160, which effectively bars county and municipal governments from enforcing zoning rules that treat manufactured homes differently from single-family homes. At the time of its passage, proponents of the legislation argued that it would help address the current housing shortage across Kentucky.
With the law set to take effect on July 1, cities in Northern Kentucky are preemptively adopting the legislation to comply with it. During a Union City Commission meeting on March 2, the legislative body conducted a first reading of an ordinance, formally adopting the zoning amendments related to manufactured homes.
The law will still permit localities to regulate homes by size and appearance, but they cannot explicitly deny homes solely because they are manufactured homes. The law does not impact the authority of local homeowners’ associations.
Union City Attorney Greg Voss said the ordinance was not being independently imposed by Boone County. Instead, because the Boone County Planning Commission administers zoning regulations on Union’s behalf, the city is required to adopt the updates to remain in compliance.
“This is not the county getting involved,” Voss said. “This is the county (Boone) taking the direction of the new statute and implementing it into the zoning regulations, which they monitor and manage for us on behalf of the city. It is not the county that came up with this. The county is mandated by the state, and so we, as members of the planning, have to.”
Moreover, Voss said that cities that do not adopt the updated zoning rules will be in violation of state law.
Union City Administrator Amy Safran said that the county is handling the technical work of drafting and processing the required amendments.
“So cities that don’t have a separate planning zoning, that have their own, they’re scrambling to meet the deadline to make the text amendments,” said Safran. “If we didn’t use the Boone County Planning Commission, we would still have to be doing this, but we fortunately have assistance from them.”
Voss said he didn’t believe the adoption of the zoning regulations would have a significant effect on Union. The majority of Union’s housing stock consists of single-family homes. He added that the law is more focused on adding to the housing supply in rural areas.
Under Kentucky state law, a qualified manufactured home is a home that meets the following criteria, including being manufactured on or after July 15, 2002; being fixed to a permanent foundation; having a minimum width of 20 feet at its narrowest point; being two stories in height; having a minimum total living area of 900 square feet; and not being located within a manufactured home land-lease community.
According to these criteria, a permanent foundation is a support system that reliably transfers the maximum design load of the structure into the ground, constructed of concrete, and placed below ground level to avoid frost damage.
Union is not the only municipality in Northern Kentucky to have taken steps to comply with state law; Covington and Erlanger have also made similar adjustments.