OLYMPIA – Snohomish County mobile home park residents appealed to state legislators Monday for help in preserving their communities from the perpetual threat of closure.
“We need a stronger commitment to provide affordable housing to our senior citizens. That doesn’t seem to exist,” said Russell Carter a resident at Mariner’s Village Mobile Home Park south of Everett.
Carter was one of nearly 80 people packed into a hearing room where lawmakers wrestled with the spread of park closures that are forcing hundreds of seniors to either move or demolish their mobile homes.
Statewide 36 parks, with 1,342 households, will close between 2006 and 2008. Ten of those parks are in Snohomish County.
The Housing Committee for the House of Representatives considered House Bill 1621, which would compel park owners to give tenants, as well as qualified nonprofits and government agencies, first chance to buy a mobile home park before it lands on the open market.
As expected, park owners opposed the legislation.
Attorney John Woodring of the Manufactured Housing Communities of Washington said restricting private property rights is a violation of the state constitution.
“We ask you to reject this legislation on constitutional grounds,” he said.
Kylin Parks, president of SOS Homes, a group of mobile homeowner associations in Snohomish County, said the bill forces landlords to be upfront about their plans.
“We don’t want to take any property rights away, she said. “We just want a chance to save our homes.”
The committee also discussed House Bill 1668, which would require park owners to provide tenants with minimum five-year rental agreements and cap yearly rent increases at a maximum of 10 percent.
The consequence of the two laws is mobile home parks would continue to be sold and no new ones built, opponents said.
“It adds too much uncertainty for those of us who build manufactured housing,” said Russ Millard of Maple Valley. “You take the incentive out of it.”
Yet these laws are needed to ease seniors’ fear of losing the only home they can afford, said Ishbel Dickens, an attorney with Columbia Legal Services.
“They are scared to death they will be unable to fulfill their lives in the homes of their choice and in the communities they choose,” she said.
Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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