County plan unfair to property owners

Regarding the Monday article, “Snohomish County orders reprieve for mobile home parks”:

I agree that the folks who live in mobile home parks have a serious problem when the park closes. The cost of moving a mobile home to another park is very high and that’s only if the mobile home owner can find another park that will accept them. However, at the same time, the property rights of the park owner also have to be considered. The rezoning will effectively remove the property from the marketplace. The owner or prospective buyer will be forced to go to the County Council in an attempt to rezone the property to develop it. If the County Council decides to take this action, it should, at the very least, give the park owner a substantial reduction in property taxes to offset the loss of marketability of his property.

This constitutes an exercise in social engineering by the County Council which I’m not sure is a wise idea. They, In effect, seize control of private property without reimbursing the property owner. It reinforces the fact that we really don’t own anything, we just lease it from the government.

Arthur W. Miller

Everett