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tenants who have long owned and occupied their mobile homes within <br />the park. In addition, the park owner's investment expectations in <br />the park would be greatly disappointed due to lost rents and <br />diminished park value. Finally, the Zoning Inspector's <br />interpretation of the ordinance gives the park owner an economic <br />incentive to keep and maintain existing mobile homes beyond their <br />useful life and an economic disincentive to improve or upgrade the <br />mobile home park by the systematic replacement of older mobile <br />homes with newer and more safe and attractive mobile homes. <br />ARGUMENT <br />THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW <br />PROTECTING EXISTING & LAWFUL NONCONFORMING USES <br />IS TO PREVENT WASTE AND UNFAIRNESS <br />Without the protection of law for nonconforming uses, citizen <br />taxpayers are at great risk of economic waste and gross unfairness <br />when the legislative body changes its regulatory mind. <br />There is economic waste, for example, when a homeowner must <br />tear down his home or his garage, or the storekeeper tear down his <br />shop or storage shed, to conform to newly enacted lot size, side <br />yard, setback or similar restrictions. It is also unfair for a <br />municipality to declare an established lawful use or infrastructure <br />investment to be suddenly illegal. <br />In a Wisconsin case, the elimination of an old but lawful <br />existing use of a mobile home site by application of a new <br />ordinance was held unconstitutional. <br />"If the ordinance in the instant case were to be <br />construed as being retrospective in operation, it would <br />7 <br />