Snohomish County orders reprieve for mobile home parks

In an effort to preserve some of Snohomish County’s last available affordable and senior housing, the County Council stepped in to make it difficult for property owners to redevelop any of more than 50 mobile home parks.

The council unanimously approved temporary zoning changes for existing mobile home parks in unincorporated areas of the county. The council declared an emergency so the rules could go into effect immediately.

The move buys policymakers six months to head off what they called a crisis in affordable housing. The pace and scale of mobile home park closures in the county is growing, sending thousands of people scrambling to relocate, council members said.

“We’ve had quite an outcry from the residents of these parks essentially being forced out,” County Council chairman Dave Somers said. “When people are being essentially evicted daily, we thought we needed a time out for a long-term strategy.”

While the tenants own their homes, they face being displaced because they don’t own the land beneath them. Moving a mobile home on a fixed income isn’t an affordable option for many.

Three mobile home parks in the county face closure this year, including Mariner Village in south Everett, Penny Lane near Snohomish and Manor Heights in Lynnwood. The three have 230 mobile homes, with the most — 165 spaces and about 250 people — at Mariner Village.

The surprise vote by the council last week was condemned by members of the lobbying group representing mobile home park owners. They vowed to work to reverse the council’s action.

Property values for these parks likely took a hit because of the council’s change in the rules, said Ken Spencer, executive director of the Manufactured Housing Communities of Washington, an Olympia-based group that represents 500 mobile home park owners.

“We don’t think this is a proper way to address the problem of affordable housing,” Spencer said. “The council is trying to solve it by imposing the burden on one class of property owner. Affordable housing is a society-wide problem. We should all share the burden in solving it.”

Private mobile home park owners have bankrolled affordable housing for decades, Spencer said.

Park owners have watched their land increase in value as the region boomed, and redevelopment as apartments, condos or shops would prove more lucrative than collecting rent from mobile home tenants.

Under the county’s previous zoning rules, mobile home park owners 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.

The council’s decision puts a new zoning classification on mobile home parks. In order to redevelop, property owners now must apply for a rezone through the county hearing examiner and the County Council.

Some tenants felt the vote means the council was listening to their concerns. A year ago, mobile home advocacy groups pushed for a moratorium on mobile home park conversions.

“Hopefully, it’s going to encourage people not to put their houses on the market and sell at panic prices,” said Russell Carter president of the Mariner Village Mobile Home Park tenant’s organization. Mariner Village, a 165-space seniors-only park in south Everett, is planned to close at the end of August if residents can’t come up with $25 million to buy the park from its current owner. “It gives us some hope that things are going to turn around,” Carter said.

The council asked for County Executive Aaron Reardon’s office to create a work plan by June 25 that analyzes and recommends improvements in the county’s stock of affordable housing.

County Councilman Mike Cooper sponsored the emergency rules.

“This is the first important step to making sure that our seniors and our low-income people in this county have a place to live that they can afford that does not, quite frankly, require taxpayer subsidies,” Cooper said.

Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.