Residents of Mariner Village Mobile Home Park face an Aug. 31 eviction deadline, and already the seniors-only park in south Everett is turning into a ghost town.
Some residents are giving up and moving out, said Russell Carter, president of the park’s homeowners association. Some are taking their mobile homes with them, while others are selling them for pennies on the dollar or leaving them behind.
“They’re tired of living with the ax hanging over their heads,” Carter said. “Many of them have medical conditions and it’s just a very unfortunate situation.”
Carter said 45 of the park’s 165 spaces are now vacant or have homes that are about to be moved. Residents are trying to buy the park from its owners.
Though the asking price per space dropped to $178,500 from $198,000, residents still can’t muster the money needed, Carter said.
The Snohomish County Council is working to prevent scenes like the one at Mariner Village from repeating itself for thousands of seniors and low-income people across the county.
The council in April slapped emergency zoning rules on about 50 mobile home parks in unincorporated areas of the county. The move temporarily made it harder to redevelop any mobile home parks into condos or shopping centers.
Today, mobile home park owners plan to lobby the County Council to reverse the decision, said Ken Spencer, executive director of the Manufactured Housing Communities of Washington, an Olympia-based group that represents 500 mobile home park owners.
“We want to change their minds and make it voluntary,” Spencer said. “We don’t like it. We don’t want it.”
Otherwise, the county is encroaching on property rights and hurting property values, he said.
The council wants to hear whether the county should adopt permanent zoning rules to prevent mobile home parks from redeveloping, County Councilman Brian Sullivan said.
Sullivan and other council members say there is a crisis in affordable housing. As more mobile home parks close in the county, thousands of people are sent scrambling to relocate.
Three mobile home parks in the county face closure this year, including Mariner Village, Penny Lane near Snohomish and Manor Heights in Lynnwood. The three parks have a total of 230 mobile homes.
Two messages left last week with Dick Beresford, an owner of Mariner Village, were not returned.
The problem isn’t unique to Snohomish County. The city of Tumwater also is considering adopting zoning rules for mobile home parks similar to Snohomish County’s, Spencer said.
Tenants of mobile home parks want the county rules to stay in place, Carter said.
The council’s vote April 27 added a hurdle to redevelopment of mobile parks. Under the county’s previous zoning rules, landowners could apply to redevelop their land depending on what land-use zone the property was in. Many mobile home parks in the county are on land zoned for commercial or high-density residential housing.
When the council slapped a temporary new zoning classification on all mobile home parks in unincorporated areas, it forced property owners to apply for a rezone through the county hearing examiner and the County Council.
A raft of policies to further help mobile-home-park tenants and property owners is expected to be considered in coming months, including possible tax breaks for park owners, Sullivan said.
Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
