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Tumwater property rights case will be interesting
December 1, 2009 by parkguy1 · Leave a Comment
THE OLYMPIAN | • Published December 01, 2009
The city of Tumwater is plowing new ground with two ordinances passed this year aimed at protecting the rights of mobile home park residents who simply want to stay in their residential mobile home park.
On the other side of the issue are the park owners who insist that the ordinances violate their rights.
And that’s what this battle boils down to: the rights of mobile home owners to stay put, versus the rights of the park owners to do what they please with their property.
This is one of those issues that will require court intervention to sort out.
The key, in our opinion, is finding balance — balance for the property owners who may want to convert their land to other, more profitable uses, and balance for residents who own their manufactured home but not the property it sits on. In many cases, the mobile home owners cannot afford to move their unit to another park.
When these conflicts arise — conflicts between tenants and property owners — the goal should be to convert the mobile park to ownership by the tenants. That way the property owner is able to make a return on his or her investment and the tenants are able to secure their future. Finding the money for the tenants to purchase the property is generally a big hurdle.
It will be very interesting to see how the Tumwater ordinances play out in court challenges because the rulings will set a precedent. The Tumwater ordinances are thought to be the first of their kind in the state.
Mobile home park owners say the Tumwater ordinances go too far in protecting the rights of tenants and not far enough in protecting the rights of the property owners.
Owners of two Tumwater parks and the Manufactured Housing Communities of Washington, a nonprofit association representing park owners statewide, have appealed to Thurston County Superior Court a state board’s ruling that one ordinance complied with the Growth Management Act, except on one issue.
Separately, the petitioners, joined by a third park owner, have sued in federal court in Tacoma, alleging that the ordinances violate their constitutional rights.
In their two-pronged court battle, the park owners say the exclusive zoning under the ordinances disproportionately burdens them with what should be a shared community responsibility to provide affordable housing. They say the ordinances are an illegal “taking” of their property in violation of the Growth Management Act — the law passed by the Legislature early in the 1990s to stop urban sprawl by forcing new development into cities and their growth areas.
As cities grow, less and less land will be available for development. That will increase property values and higher values will entice mobile home park owners to change the use of their property from mobile home parks to a higher use — whether it’s residential or commercial.
Ken Spencer, the manufactured housing association’s executive director, said under Tumwater’s ordinance the city is preventing redevelopment opportunities that could bring more affordable housing, because the same properties could sustain double or even triple the number of dwellings.
Dan Beedle, 75, a resident of Laurel Park Estates, said if the property were sold out from under him, he could not move to another mobile home park because his manufactured home is too old to move. Beedle said some park residents who live on $700 a month in Social Security checks, “would be out in the cold.”
“It (the ordinance) gives us the coverage we need, but it still gives the property owner the opportunity to get it rezoned,” he said. Under the ordinance, there’s sufficient time for park residents to organize to try to buy the property or move elsewhere if the property owner pursues rezoning, Beedle said.
The Tumwater City Council unanimously passed the ordinances saying that under the state’s Growth Management Act, they are required to identify land for housing for low-income families. Mobile home parks fit the bill.
Tumwater officials deserve credit for a bold effort to protect affordable housing options. The question the courts must decide is if city officials went too far and violated the rights of property owners in the process.
