A tale of two states
When it comes to mobile homes, it’s not just what town you live in, it’s which state.
· Faced with rezoning as a means of circumventing mobile home laws (Paradise Park, Highlands, New Jersey)
· Presented with the opportunity to sell their property at a mammoth price (Briny Breezes, Florida).
The difference? Who owns the underlying land.
I own the land, and I am your lord!
Now come two stories from opposite coasts that illustrate strikingly how variations in state law influence the residents’ situation. First the no-rights scenario, Antioch, California, as reported in the Contra Costa Times:
The management of an
Abe Arrigotti, president of Anaheim-based Sierra Corporate Management, which operates Vista Diablo Mobile Home Park, has been criticized by the park’s elderly tenants and the City Council.
Suddenly surrounded by subdivisions — suboptimal!
Vista Diablo residents in their 70s and 80s, who are on fixed incomes, have signed 20-plus-year leases with annual rent increases of 6%.
No one compelled the residents to sign these long-term leases, we should not. But they may not have appreciated that 6% annually means doubling every 12 years.
Park residents complained last year to the City Council, which is now investigating how a rent control ordinance might impact the situation.
We saw similar political dynamics at work in Modesto — free marketers finding themselves reaching for rent control because they think the negotiating leverage is horribly unbalanced.
Although Arrigotti insists that his company is no different from any other, Councilman Brian Kalinowski has made no effort to hide his contempt for the firm.
“The way this group has been conducting business has been slimy — and that’s being nice,” Kalinowski said. “From my perspective, nothing about this smells right. You have 70-plus-year-old seniors signing leases for 20 years or more with an automatic 6% increase in rent each year. How do you do that to someone on fixed income?”
Meanwhile, on the other coast (or near to it), in Exeter, New Hampshire, the Boston Globe reports on how those residents are confronted with a different challenge:
The residents of Lindenshire Mobile Home Park were blindsided by the registered letters that arrived in mid-November.
Carved from the woods … and inviting single-family homes?
“It was the last thing I expected,” said Joseph Cayer, a resident of the
It shouldn’t have been. The sylvan home of Philips Exeter Academy,
The letters informed the residents in verbose legalese that Morgan Acquisitions of Pittsfield, N.Y., had signed an agreement to buy the 88-acre, 392-unit park for $15.6 million from the current owner, Mark Kaufmann.
Is the bid real?
Or what you can get someone else to pay
On the one hand, it’s $177,000 per acre, which seems like a lot. But if we presume that the land can hold acre-lot single-family homes, they would probably have to sell in the range of $500,000 apiece, a figure that most Bostonians would think fairly reasonable. A higher-density use such as townhouses could get the land cost down to $35,000 per condo, and drop the target price into the $250,000 range. [Figures are AHI’s SWAGs.] Preliminary conclusion: the price is plausible, even with the risks:
[Resident Anita Jordan, a retired teacher who has lived in the park for 18 years], said she fears that a new buyer might evict the current residents of the park, subdivide the 88-acre property, and build new homes. But [Chris Clasby, project director of the manufactured housing park program at the nonprofit New Hampshire Community Loan Fund], who has advised the co-op every step along the way and has lived in mobile home parks, said that is unlikely because of zoning laws that would have to be changed.
Mr. Clasby’s instincts to the contrary, it’s hard to see that land price as being supported purely by the land rents. More than likely, the buyers plan an eventual conversion.
You’ll need a change in use?
Under
Kaufmann, the park owner, must then negotiate in good faith with the co-op. If the sale to residents is unsuccessful and the state finds that the owner did not negotiate in good faith, it can impose a penalty of 10 percent of the purchase price.
Tomorrow [that is,
This is a huge effort in resident self-government and collaboration:
With Mr. Clasby’s help, the residents of the park voted on Dec. 13 to form a cooperative and explore the possibility of purchasing the mobile home park. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor — 192 to 2.
We see here the critical role played by volunteer or low-cost technical assistance from committed specialists. Even allowing that the law uses a generous timetable for the residents’ self-organization,
If it is successful, it will be the largest mobile home cooperative in the state, joining more than 40 cooperatively owned mobile home parks in
Enact a law, give residents standing to compete on a market basis, and you can change outcomes. Forty mobile home parks preserved is a very meaningful impact.
Sylmar, with
Back in
Blue Star, Sylmar, next door to that lovely freeway offramp
At the all-age Blue Star Mobile Home Park in Sylmar late last year, tenants complained after Sierra Corporate Management increased space rents by $129 and rent for new tenants by $400.
New state Sen. Alex Padilla, D-
Padilla has friends in high places, like the U. S. Senate
Have you noticed the common feature of all three locations? Once they were rural, exurbs, out of the way and the development path. Now, with expanding urban areas and rising property values, these places have been engulfed by much higher value neighbors. (The same holds true, as we have seen, in
“The tenants came to my office requesting help because of not only what was going on, but, because they reached out to family and friends, they discovered similar activities at other mobile home parks,” Padilla said. “There’s a trend of drastically and — in some cases — unlawfully raised rents. Housing is expensive enough in this state, but it’s tougher when you have unscrupulous landlords or are a family on fixed income.”
Padilla said he met with Arrigotti but was unable to reach a compromise. The city of
If you cannot enact a statute, extend its geographic reach!
Maybe I can grab the next community!
Padilla is also drafting state legislation to better protect mobile home park residents.
“We’re seeking a way to have the parks recognized as viable, affordable housing for seniors and working families,” Padilla said. “We want to put up more obstacles to prevent these out-of-control rent increases, because it seems a lot of mobile home parks are experiencing similar problems. It’s frustrating that city officials have limited jurisdiction in these matters.”
Is manufactured housing, truly affordable housing? Heretofore it has not been thought so; rather it’s been seen as the out-of-sight place where rural or lower-income suburban communities stash ‘those people.‘ As the suburbs urbanize, the previously ignored becomes, if not celebrated and cherished, at least no longer taken for granted.
Part of the change is psychological, at the level of the residents:
Clawsby said he has helped residents of several other mobile home parks form cooperatives. “It is gratifying work,” he said. “Once they buy the property their mindset changes. They start making improvements and have basic pride in their property.”
The beneficial behavioral change is wrought, one may conclude, not just from owning the home (mobile), but also from controlling the property and having appreciation potential. We can also see it the other way: mobile home owners who rent their spaces have the economic tenure of renters even as they have fewer protections than do most renters.
“Little people can move mountains when they get together,” said Roger Morrison, Barbara’s husband. “It’s
… and a righteous wrath
