Manufactured Homes/Mobile Home News – The “Good, the Bad and the Ugly”
The following are snapshot reactions of three manufactured home/mobile home stories from across the country illustrating public confusion about the social value of manufactured housing and those that call them home.
City of Boulder, Colorado Supporting Manufactured Housing Communities
Source: City of Boulder – More than 1,300 households live in Boulder’s five manufactured housing communities, which provide a lifestyle valued by their community members at a relatively affordable cost. Since 2019, the city staff has been working on the Manufactured Housing Strategy Action Plan and despite significant resource impacts due to COVID-19, nearly all action items were meaningfully addressed through local policy changes, and state legislation supported by the city, programs, and initiatives.
Key highlights include the creation of a guide to navigating landlord-tenant regulations, city code updated to protect buying and selling manufactured homes and regulate landlord-tenant matters in manufactured home communities, the installation of the Ponderosa Community Solar Garden, increased community awareness of the city’s Home Repair Program and a compilation of resources for Manufactured home community members.
For more information “click” our previous report – “City of Boulder Identifies Ways to Support ‘at Risk’ Manufactured Home Communities”
Proposed Pause on Mobile Homes In Maine’s Dover-Foxcroft’s Historic District Questioned Amid State Housing Crisis
Source: Piscataquis Observer – A proposed moratorium that would keep affordable housing out of Dover-Foxcroft’s historic district is confounding local officials during a time when Mainers statewide are already struggling to find places to live.
The Dover-Foxcroft Select Board on Monday tabled a revised version of a proposed moratorium – which pertains to manufactured housing in the district and was initially tabled during an Aptil 11 meeting – that would target mobile homes specifically.
In the latest volley in the town’s discussions about what should be allowed in that area, at a time when affordable housing is an issue in Maine, Dover-Foxcroft is trying to manage its concerns about development and residents’ high interest in establishing mobile homes while also preserving the historic district.
Based on feedback from the April 11 hearing, the town land-use planning consultant Gwen Hilton changed language in the proposed moratorium to focus on mobile homes rather than the broader manufactured housing.
Mobile homes threaten the historic district’s character and the cultural value of the town, plus the aesthetics and the town’s use of the area for community parades and events, according to a draft of the amended moratorium.
The moratorium would pause permitting for and placement of mobile homes in the area for 180 days, which the Select Board can extend, repeal or modify, to give town leadership time to examine land use, especially as it pertains to the historic district.
Residents in Washington Mobile Home Park Stunned by 186% Space Rent Increase
Source: Peninsula Daily News – When the hand-delivered letter announcing a 186% rent increase at the homes in the Rain Forest Mobile Home Park, residents were stunned. Starting in one year the rent would increase monthly from $300 to $1000.
Immediately thereafter panic has set in. Many of the residents have resided in the park for over 30 years. The consensus is that the huge increase will force the residents from the park, many will not afford to move, nor will there be spaces available in any other manufactured home communities where their home could be sited. The park owner thus far has not agreed to mitigate the situation.
