Madisonville officials are looking to ban the popular prefabricated modular homes from their lakeside town, nearly a year after they passed an ordinance allowing them.

In April of last year, after a resident expressed her desire to purchase one of the relatively inexpensive homes, town officials decided to create an ordinance clearly defining a modular home as a structure transportable in one or more sections, which is designed for use only with a permanent foundation and which uses standard framing, sheathing, roofing, siding and electrical, plumbing and heating systems, all of which comply with the Town’s adopted building codes.

They also added a few regulations to the ordinance to protect the Town’s infrastructure that required the resident to submit the route the delivery truck would use inside the town, the height and width dimensions, police detail and a cash bond that would serve as a security deposit. Since then, the modular home was installed on Pine Street.

It’s unsightly, town officials and residents along Pine Street said at a recent town council meeting.

The raised structure resembles a double-wide trailer, residents complained, which clashes with the façade of the adjacent homes.

Council members agreed and requested to rescind their original ordinance.

The town attorney is taking the necessary actions to repeal the ordinance.

The retraction of the law could come as early as the next council meeting, officials said.

About the same time Madisonville passed its ordinance allowing the prefabricated homes last year, Folsom’s Board of Aldermen banned the homes because of an incident where the delivery truck and crane to lift the home crushed a major water main shutting off water to many residents for several hours.

Abita Springs and Slidell also have a moratorium on the installation of modular homes because of the headaches transporting and installing the homes creates for older streets.

Slidell’s six-month moratorium was instituted so the city could see how modular homes would affect their 25-year master plan that is still being formulated. The prefabricated homes became a popular alternative to brick construction after Hurricane Katrina because of their inexpensiveness and relatively short completion times.

The homes are constructed at the manufacturer then trucked to the desired location in sections. The sections are assembled and installed onsite.