The author loses me immediately when he states:

“As the income gap between the very wealthy and the very poor grows, even more people are exposed to the effects of natural disasters, he says. What we’ve learned is that when you think about disasters, they’re really societal at heart (and) people don’t like to hear that.”

So now we’re going to claim that those who are killed in tornados are the victims of class warfare.

I’m not sure if the writer of this article has any clue on science, but 1) no structure can withstand a 170 mph wind and 2) the southeast does not get more tornados because wealthy people arranged it that way.

In a society that is obsessed with everyone being a victim, I guess this is another shot at victimhood. I’m sure I’ll see late night TV ads offering to sue Mother Nature as soon as Camp Lejeune gets worn out.

This is one of those cases where local officials need to step in and help these people. There’s no way that anybody can predict a sinkhole and nobody did anything wrong. However, I’m sure that insurance does not cover this in any way and there’s no way these residents can live in a hotel for the months or years needed before California approves them to go back inside their homes (if they are ever let in again). If the state can allocate $100,000 per household just to move a mobile home (see the articles from prior weeks) you would think they could write a couple checks to help these people out.

Well written article that tells the facts without political spinning. Essentially, the tenants wanted the city council to block their park from being redeveloped and the “city legal staff told the council the zoning change would violate a state law that protects private property owners.”

You know you have a problem with elected officials when they take their talking points from a news channel. Next they will be posing with the TV anchor while wearing promotional T-shirts and receiving free key chains.

The park residents apparently cheated on the required 51% of signatures to start the process of exercising their first option, and they got caught. No amount of woke pandering is going to fix this simple fact, and the judge stood up for the park owner – and the letter of the law – and did not back down. Good for him!

Between fires, flooding, landslides, homelessness, crime, taxes – and now even sinkholes – you would think that there is a conspiracy to turn California back into agricultural land as residents flee. Will there one day be avocado orchards again where Bel Air used to stand?

This is a great article and this is exactly what Habitat for Humanity should be doing instead of building $200,000 modular homes (as described in an earlier mention above). For that same money, they could rebuild 10 to 20 existing homes and help many more people for the same cost.

Best article of the week. It gives credit where credit is due, and focuses on the benefits to the majority of residents and not the gripes of the few that hate positive change.

Refreshing to see a journalist not grab the low-hanging fruit and title this “mobile homes” instead of “starter homes”.

I’m kind of lost on how this is any different than the city simply co-signing on a traditional mortgage. But the bigger question is “who is going to pay for this?” Most cities, states (and the U.S. government ) are completely broke and can’t possibly actually afford to do any of these initiatives, which cost in the millions of dollars. So who is actually writing the checks on programs like this?

A $200,000 house is NOT affordable housing. Not even close. And a 1,200 sq. ft. house for $200,000 is NOT reason for celebration. Good thing that non-profits like Habitat for Humanity are staffed with people with zero business skills so they can celebrate wasting money at this level. You could have bought a standard 1,200 sq. ft. mobile home for $70,000 installed – and that’s almost 70% less. So you could have installed three homes for the price of one. Crazy.

Give me a break. The park increased rents just $27 per month and people are saying that they can’t buy food, medicine or the necessities of life because of that increase. This park is in California. A hamburger costs $10 at McDonalds there. When will people acknowledge that some states are incredibly expensive to live in (like California) and are not appropriate for those on limited incomes, who should instead move to states that are more affordable? I can already tell you when we will see this park in the news again: when they tear it down to make room for a better use that does not have pushback like this on a $27 per month price increase. This article is ridiculous.

This is NOT a “manufactured home community” – at least when you read this announcement “Rockrose Ranch has prices starting in the $110,000s to $220,000s”. In last week’s articles a developer called his mobile home park a “cottage community” so that it had no negative stigma. This owner needs to come up with a different name, too, because it’s not fair to call this concept basically a “mobile home park” as it has absolutely nothing to do with that concept other than residents paying lot rent as opposed to owning the land.

Unblievable -- an actually fair and balanced article that looks at the issue from both sides. I recommend reading this one.

The successful mobile home park of the future has rents that make the park capable of investing in infrastructure and giving sufficient profit not to redevelop into a better use and mitigates liability by banning trampolines and any item that causes significant risk of personal injury. New owners are bringing old parks back to life nationwide and that’s just the way it’s going to be from here on out. Those residents that want to live in an environment with no rules and ridiculously low rents will need to gather together at the old dirt-road park down the street until it gets hit by the wrecking ball.

Can recreational vehicles and mobile homes mix?

That’s the question at issue in a Baldwin County land use debate that’s gone to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s desk.

Last week, the Baldwin County Commission authorized a request for an opinion from the attorney general’s office on whether the county can legally prohibit RV park sites in a mobile home park, a rule in its subdivision regulations.

The question comes down to whether the rule is a matter of zoning or a matter of health and safety.

According to the request sent to the AG’s office, an unnamed owner of a mobile home park wanted to add RV sites to his park, which is forbidden by Baldwin County’s subdivision regulations.

Around 40 out of 4,500 mobile home parks in CA fail their inspection by the state. That’s less than 1%. But using just the example of this one property, the journalist demands that they ramp up the park inspection intensity in CA, which will result in more park owners simply throwing in the towel and putting their property up for sale as a land development opportunity. The better story was  completely missed by the reporter when he wrote regarding a state review of mobile home park permits:

The report goes on to say that “many mobile home park owners are financially unable to rehabilitate their parks.” 

You are not going to be able to maintain the affordable housing supply in California by forcing park owners out of business. Instead, the state should consider coming up with grants to help park owners who are financially strapped to re-build aging, failing infrastructure. What if the owner of this park had received a grant to fix the failing sewer system and make basic upgrades and then all of the folks in the story would not be displaced. It’s a whole lot cheaper to fix old infrastructure than to try to find alternative housing for people living in failing mobile home parks.

A 380 square foot house for $125,000 is something that would only work in California. And that does not even include the land. As a Midwesterner, this blows my mind.

It’s a consistent theme of bureaucrats in the U.S. to offer great-sounding programs that never actually get funded (particularly when they need attention before an election). While we applaud the concept of giving $8,000 to individual mobile home owners to make necessary repairs – and then having them pay it back in regular monthly installments – talking about it doesn’t do any good. It’s a shame that park owners are not held to the same standard, promising to pay their property taxes and then, if they don’t, having no consequences or accountability.

“The asking price for the 87-lot, 2.78-acre park at 103 Church Avenue: $16 million”. I know that the fact that Babe Ruth lived in this park in the 1930s is cool, but let’s face some reality here. First of all, that’s a density of 29 units per acre, which is insanely tight (the lots are crazy small, as are the trailers). And that price works out to $183,908 per lot. Wouldn’t the residents be miles ahead if you just gave them that money and they could move into a nice brick house?

Here’s what the writer of this article is promoting:

“The councilmembers also recommended that the city partner with a nonprofit to study the city's mobile home parks. The city would then use the study to create a special zoning overlay, which would prevent property owners from redeveloping mobile home parks and changing the land use without city approval.”

This would effectively qualify as a “public taking” of these parks and there is a methodology to that which would require the city to pay the park owners what they could get for the land for redevelopment. But, of course, the city does not want to pay anything for this ability to “take” these properties so they want to put an overlay on them to reduce their value without paying the difference.

If the city council passes this, I would hope that the park owner sues each and every council member personally for illegally taking away their property rights. That will get their attention and perhaps end their pandering to this nonsense. I saw this same thing happen in the 1980s when a landowner tried to tear down a grocery store to build a movie theater. The neighbors didn’t want to lose the grocery store, so they convinced the Dallas city council to vote to refuse to allow the developer to build the theater, even though it meant all their guidelines. The property owner filed suit personally on each member of the city council the following morning and the council mysteriously voted to undo their ruling within a couple days.

Only a handful of towns in New Hampshire’s Upper Valley are taking up zoning changes this town meeting season. But farther south, in New London, town officials are also pushing for changes in an effort to address the housing shortage.

“I think we’re feeling the same pressures as the rest of the state in the housing market,” New London Zoning Administrator Adam Ricker said. “We’ve been hearing from our major institutions that they’re having a hard time recruiting because people can’t find housing — not just in New London, but anywhere in a reasonable commuting distance that’s affordable for the positions that they’re recruiting for.”

Recent census data shows that single family units make up the vast majority of New London’s housing. This spring, the town’s planners are hoping voters will be open to incentivizing different types of housing developments. That would include multi-family homes, condos, and workforce units. Another proposal would grant density bonuses — financial incentives to build units in a specified development project — in certain parts of town where planners think more housing would work well.

Paradis, who leads the town’s planning board, said that kind of mixed housing stock is exactly what the town needs: Right now, New London officials say out of the more than 2000 units in town, only 7 are available.
Building a variety of housing, Paradis said, would allow many different people to make New London a home.

“I don't think you're going to see a wholesale change,” he said. “We would just have different types of housing beyond just single family housing in certain areas where it makes sense.”

Ricker said it’s hard to tell how the proposals will go over when voters finally weigh in.

“I think that whatever the will of the voters ends up being, it will provide the planning board data,” he said. “Then, they can readjust and decide what their path forward will be.”

Only 5 out of 91 mobile homes were severely damaged in a tornado hit directly on the park? Pretty impressive. Mobile homes are a lot tougher than people give them credit for. Of course, the modern tie-down is a big part of the story, as a mobile home that breaks loose from the ground becomes effectively a giant, flying wrecking ball.

Great quote from the new owner who is trying to bring this old park back to life:

“Darlene claims, and may be right, that she doesn't have the money to save the park, to fix the water,” Hamilton said. “If the water doesn't get fixed, the park will implode and have to close down and that will be the end of it for everybody there. They don't deserve that, they're innocent people. And no one else is going to do it.”

This is one of those rare articles that is actually fair and balanced.

A judge shoots down each and every claim from a group of disgruntled residents and decides that the tenants failed in their quest to buy the park under their first option, having failed to get the necessary resident signatures to start the process by around 30%. The crazy part is that the residents were able to keep this case in court for years when the whole case was so stupid. Shame on this judge who wasted so much time and legal fees on points of law that any sane adult could have ruled on within an hour.