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Lawmakers want to protect mobile home owners from displacement
Mary Lane says she simply has nowhere else to go once the Monte Vista Mobile Home Park south of Boise closes - and that time is getting closer every day. Lane, 60, is disabled and single. She lives on disability payments of just $670 each month. She owns her mobile home outright but pays rent for the space in Monte Vista. Recently, the Idaho Department of Lands acquired more than 31 acres from the J.R. Simplot Co. in a land exchange. As part of the deal, Simplot agreed to remove an old KOA campground and the trailer park from the land at Gowen Road and Federal Way by fall 2010. "After I got over the shock of it, I was pretty devastated," Lane said. "I've got kids. They have their own families and lives. It leaves me no place to go, no recourse. There is no credit, and you can't buy anything and still live on $670 a month." Rep. Phylis King, D-Boise, hopes to introduce a bill to help Lane and others who share her predicament: being displaced by redevelopment. King wants to overhaul the Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act to give mobile home owners more rights. "Owning mobile homes, we have no rights," Lane said. King is still tweaking the legislation, which is co-sponsored by Rep. Carlos Bilbao, R-Emmett. King says the bill would protect park residents from frivolous evictions and unreasonable rent increases, and would extend timelines for notifications and eviction. Other legislation would give residents the first chance to buy a mobile home park if the landlord decided to sell. King also plans a bill to create a mobile home trust fund, patterned after the low-income housing fund. The fund would help displaced mobile home residents find other housing. The money could come from a fee on the sale of manufactured homes, she said. King said a funding mechanism must still be hammered out for how homeowners' associations could make the purchases. "This is an option we should have available for people who want them," King said. "Like low-income, starting families, seniors." But at least one trade group representing manufacturers, sellers and developers of manufactured homes opposes King's legislation in its current form. Some of King's changes are bad for owners, said Linda Lindholm, executive director of Idaho Housing Alliance, a nonprofit trade association. Her group opposes giving tenants the right of first refusal to buy mobile home parks. "Any unreasonable time to wait will kill the deal," Lindholm said. Lindholm also said King's version of the landlord-tenant act incorporates rent control and unreasonable notification requirements for landlords. For example, the revised landlord-tenant act increases the notice on park closures from 180 days to a full year. Violation notices would increase from three days to 15 days, and notices to vacate would go from 20 days to 90, Lindholm said. "That's not going to fly," she said. "There are just many, many things in here. There's no way. It's totally objectionable to any private property owner." However, Lindholm said her group is working with King on revising the legislation. In the past two years, three mobile home parks closed in Boise and Garden City. Former Gov. Jim Risch created a special task force to look for solutions. King was on the committee and learned about the plight of mobile home park residents. "It seems like a really good cause," King said. "We need to preserve work force housing. In this economy, this is like basic work force housing. Let's protect, preserve and encourage it." The committee released a report with several suggestions, which are incorporated into King's proposed legislation. But Gov. Butch Otter has not yet signed off on the committee report. Housing advocates and mobile home residents have since created the Idaho Mobile and Manufactured Homeowners Association to look for solutions, including setting up homeowners' associations within mobile home parks. Housing advocates say stories like Lane's are becoming too familiar in the Treasure Valley as mobile home parks - for many people the last affordable, unsubsidized housing - are razed for new development. The average cost to move a manufactured home to a new park is $7,000 to $15,000, advocates said. Often the homes are too old to move. The Idaho Mobile Home Rehabilitation Act requires mobile homes manufactured before June 15, 1976, to be tested and repaired, if needed, before they are relocated. If the mobile home is being moved to a location other than an existing mobile home park, there may be even more stringent requirements. If an owner can't afford the inspections, repairs and moving costs, homes may be abandoned or torn down. That's the situation Lane now faces. Lane says she can't afford an inspection, repairs and moving costs, so her home will be torn down. Ritchie Eppink, an attorney with Idaho Legal Aid, represents three of the parks' 15 households, including Lane's. "The Department of Lands wants the land for its development potential," Eppink said. That's a constitutional mandate for the Department of Lands. The agency is responsible for turning a profit with state "endowment lands," which generate funds primarily for schools and universities. "(Monte Vista has) been an ad hoc park for quite some time," said Kathy Opp, deputy director for the Department of Lands. The city of Boise's long-range planning shows that area redeveloping into mixed-use commercial and office spaces, Opp said. The lot's location makes it valuable for redevelopment potential. So the agency negotiated for a cash payment from Simplot to help relocate park residents, Opp said. In September, the park's commercial property manager - hired by Simplot - sent residents a letter giving them a two-year lease termination and laid out cash incentives for moving earlier. If the residents moved their mobile homes and all possessions by June 1 of this year, they would receive $4,500. Those moving out by Oct. 1 will get $3,000. Anyone staying until September 2010 gets nothing. The state just isn't in the position to be a landlord, Opp said. "The cash settlement is considerably more than they would get from any other private company," Opp said. But the $4,500 won't buy a new home for Lane, who said she must pay a large portion to demolish her trailer, which was built sometime before 1976. "I'd rather they just leave it a trailer park," she said. "And I can't rent an apartment on my monthly income." It is unclear if King's re-write of the landlord-tenant act would help Lane. The state exchanged the land rather than selling it. But a fund to help displaced residents could make it easier for Lane and others to buy another, newer home or at least make a down payment on a new manufactured home. http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/638003.html |
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