EVERETT
A proposed law seeks to keep most mobile home parks in unincorporated Snohomish County from being closed to make way for houses or condominiums.
Park tenants say they need extra protection to keep the land from being sold out from under them. They own their homes but pay rent for the land it sits on.
Park owners, though, have sued the city of Tumwater over a similar law, saying it violates their property rights.
The county’s planning commission was scheduled to hold a public hearing on the issue July 28, after Enterprise deadline.
“Manufactured housing is the last source of unsubsidized affordable housing left,” said Kylin Parks of Lynnwood, a board member with the statewide Association of Manufactured Home Owners. “They own the homes, but not the land underneath, so it’s a real uneven playing field.”
Before the housing bubble burst, there was a huge incentive for park owners to sell as their land grew more valuable. At least 14 parks have closed since 2006, displacing 669 households, according to county planners. During the same time, low-income families and seniors have found it harder to find inexpensive housing.
The County Council stepped in more than a year ago with an emergency ban that remains in effect until October.
Planning and County Council staff wrote the proposals based on ideas from an oversight committee. The new rules would apply to urban areas with residential zoning. Landowners could still build something else on the property, if they ask for and receive a zoning change. The rules would not apply in rural, commercial or industrial areas.
The Manufactured Housing Communities of Washington, a statewide group representing 500 park owners, has challenged a Tumwater law similar to what officials here will consider. The group filed a federal tort claim and an appeal with the state’s Growth Management Hearings Board.
“It’s a huge property rights issue for us,” executive director Ken Spencer said.
Everybody should be chipping in to solve the affordable-housing problem, he said, not just park owners.
Ishbel Dickens, an attorney with Seattle-based Columbia Legal Services, says manufactured-home communities provide a good source of income for the owners, “but they don’t provide any sense of security to the tenants.”
County staff estimate that the proposed ordinance would affect 27 communities.
Noah Haglund writes for the Herald of Everett.
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