Residents of Everett mobile home park face moving crisis

Published 11:49 pm Wednesday, February 20, 2008

EVERETT — Lois Cairns Smith’s eyes well up with tears realizing she has to go through it all again.

Cairns Smith, 71, lives in Mariner Village, a seniors-only mobile home park in south Everett, where about 260 people are still wondering what the coming months will bring.

Residents face a deadline of Aug. 31 before they are expected to move out. The park’s owners originally hoped to develop their land, possibly for townhomes and senior apartments.

While those plans have changed, Smith wonders whether she will ever be able to put down some roots.

“This is an emergency,” Cairns Smith said. “It really makes me want to cry seeing these people hanging on by their fingernails.”

A huge effort to try to save the homes of these seniors is under way as the deadline draws nearer.

Mariner Village’s owners now are offering to sell their land to the park. The residents are working hard to find a way to buy it.

And politicians are studying state and county regulations that might control the redevelopment of this and other mobile home parks.

As property becomes more valuable, park owners often are hoping to develop their land for lucrative projects. That means residents must leave.

The Snohomish County Council is considering calling for a time out, and is studying a countywide moratorium on the redevelopment of mobile home parks.

“We’re looking at all of the mobile home parks across the county and what we can do to put the brakes on conversions until we get some potential ordinances to help solve the problem,” County Councilman Brian Sullivan said.

“This is the last stand for affordable housing that’s not subsidized.”

The are more than 100 mobile home parks in the county, and many fill the need for low-income senior housing. Conversions cost seniors money, whether in moving their homes or in increased rents elsewhere. And as more mobile home parks close, there are fewer places to move.

It’s a problem that needs to be tackled quickly, while still balancing the fine line between private property rights and rights and needs of tenants, Sullivan said.

Edmonds attorney Dick Beresford is part of an investment group that owns Mariner Village, a 165-unit park at 815 124th St. SW.

He worries about how long the proposed moratorium might last, and whether it would hurt the group’s offer to sell each tenant the slice of property beneath their mobile home for $200,000.

The Housing Authority of Snohomish County is working to line up financing for tenants who would not qualify for traditional loans, Beresford said.

“If I had a dream, we’d accommodate as many people in the park as possible. That’s the top priority,” he said. “We’re trying our darnedest to speed up the process as best as we possibly can.”

The county likely would face opposition from property owners if they push ahead with a ban on redeveloping mobile home parks, said Ken Spencer, executive director of the Manufactured Housing Communities of Washington. The Olympia-based group represents more than 500 mobile home park owners in the state and previously helped thwart efforts at the state level to impose restrictive zoning rules that would prevent park owners from redeveloping.

“(Owners) are people who have privately financed affordable housing for many years,” Spencer said. “As land around them becomes more valuable, they’re looking at this as their (own) retirement in many cases.”

Allowing entrepreneurs to build new parks in rural areas outside of urban cores is one of the best ways to restore Washington’s depleted stock of mobile home spaces, Spencer said. His group lobbied state lawmakers to help lift some restrictions of the Growth Management Act that limit where housing can be built, but proposed bills in the House and Senate haven’t gained much traction.

Meanwhile, the state House of Representatives voted Wednesday to give mobile home park tenants at least two years’ notice before a park is closed or redeveloped. The measure next goes to the Senate for consideration.

Some Mariner Village residents such as Dick Balser, a former mayor of Brier, have lobbied the state Legislature for such protections. He’s hoping that the County Council will step in to prevent residents from losing the land they rent beneath their homes.

“There’s no procedure for facilitating park residents acquiring their own property,” Balser said. “We need a moratorium to give time for creating good regulations.”

The park’s tenants say they lived in limbo for months after the park was sold for $15 million in August 2006. The owners include Beresford and another Edmonds attorney, David Tingstad.

A plan surfaced, seeking to build a subdivision on the park’s 27-acres, with 363 townhouses, 38 cottages and 176 senior apartments. In May, tenants were told their leases would end Aug. 31, 2008. Mobile home park owners are required by law to give a year’s notice before closing a park.

Tenants organized and following discussions, the park’s investors offered to sell individual spaces and said they would work with lenders.

In order to make the sale work, however, the owners say they need at least 125 buyers for the park’s 165 spaces, said Carrol Spicer, president of the Mariner Village Home Owners Association.

Residents haven’t yet been able to buy spaces because the park has not yet been converted into a condominium, a step which must be approved by the county.

Spicer said she believes the owners are working with residents in good faith and is hopeful that a solution can be found.

“They’re giving us an opportunity to buy the land under our houses,” Spicer said. Some residents have meager savings and live on Social Security payments. “If we lose our homes, we lose everything.”