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VENICE – The city of Venice will consider changing its rules to give residents of Venice Bay Mobile Home Park the ability to build more resilient structures to replace homes substantially damaged by hurricanes Helene and Milton.
The 1940s mobile home park predates by more than two decades the digging of the portion of the Intracoastal Waterway that created the island of Venice. It is also in a Coastal High Hazard Zone and laid out under archaic residential manufactured home zoning guidelines.
By a 6-1 vote, with Council Member Joan Farrell – who lives in the Harbor Lights manufactured home community on the west side of Tamiami Trail –...
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In 1933 Prohibition ended. The U.S. government had tried to stop Americans from drinking alcohol since 1920 but the will of the people ultimately prevailed. Then you had the emergence of Uber, which violated most city taxi laws but, once again, the will of the people won out. And it’s pretty clear to me that a large number of Americans prefer having the option of tiny homes, park models and container homes in addition to the traditional mobile home product and, at least in Venice, Florida, the will of the people has prevailed again.
I know that most mobile home manufacturers will fight this reality, but the advent of new technologies – such as 3-D printing – makes them no longer the only game in town. It’s only a matter of time until more municipalities adapt to what the public desires and allow more than just HUD-code mobile homes on the park’s lots. Park owners have no downside from this eventuality, as we just rent land and are more than happy to have the customers highly satisfied with whatever housing type they choose. However, this competition might actually be healthy for mobile home manufacturers, as these housing alternatives are fairly pricey and make the cost of the traditional mobile home product – which is nearly twice as large – look like an absolute bargain.
We’ll see how this turns out in the decades ahead.