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February 24, 2022  by  Justin Sharer ,  Steve Butler Category:  Housing

One important source of affordable housing in many communities is manufactured housing (formerly referred to as 'mobile homes'). These are commonly situated in manufactured home parks (MHPs) and allow lower-income households to own or rent their residence at an affordable price while also attaining a sense of community and privacy that is often not found in mid-rise multi-family housing. Although many local decision-makers and leaders acknowledge the value of manufactured homes, they often do not have a good understanding of MHPs within their communities or the perspectives of MHP residents.

Manufactured housing also presents a particular challenges for residents — even though a person may own their residence, they are still a tenant of the MHP. This creates a unique real estate situation where a tenant’s housing security is dependent on forces outside their control: A MHP owner may decide to close or convert their property to another use and the tenant is left scrambling because it is expensive to move their housing unit and/or local zoning codes limit the locations to where those manufactured homes may be relocated.

The City of Kent has a relatively large number of people living in MHPs. In April 2021, the city completed a Manufactured Home Park Preservation Study that sought to “support the City’s future policymaking for MHPs including strategies to preserve MHPs where they provide quality, safe, affordable housing for Kent’s residents,” due in part to the affordable housing challenges facing communities throughout the entire state.

The Kent MHP study contains eight key findings:

The Kent MHP study offers an approach and methodology that could be used by other local governments wanting to learn more about how MHPs provide housing options within their community. Although the structure of this blog isn’t directly aligned with the outline of the Kent study, the eight findings above are discernable in each of the sections below.

Kent’s study has a replicable approach that can be broken down into the following components, with each component containing parts of the corresponding eight findings mentioned above:

The study’s results are presented in an easily understandable format due to an effective use of data visualization and quantitative measures.

In this section, Kent describes the approach to their MHP rating system, provides a breakdown of the site conditions for each MHP in the community (including resident feedback on home conditions and the age breakdown of mobile/manufactured homes in each community), and analyzes other demographic and socio-economic factors.

Here are a few of Kent’s key findings in this section:

In order to know how to best help or improve upon the conditions of a MHP, it is important to be aware of the ownership and management of each, since the owners are accountable for maintaining common areas and keeping them clean, exterminating pests, maintaining utilities, keeping roads in good condition, and obeying other applicable codes, ordinances, statutes, and regulations (see RCW 59.20).

Key findings in this section of Kent’s study include:

There are several ways that a local government can support and encourage the continuation of MHP communities. Kent’s study identified the primary support options as being:

Kent’s study also focuses on the challenging issue of displacement. When a MHP closes or is sold there are a wide range of adverse effects on MHP tenants, especially those who own older mobile homes that cannot be moved (due to age or poor condition) to another MHP. Some good examples of support options addressing MHP closure and tenant displacement that the City of Kent already uses are to:

See Kent’s Housing Resources webpage for more details.

The study analyzed findings from the previous three sections to identify the major obstacles MHPs face in being able to make necessary infrastructure improvements, including:

The study makes the following observation about the lack of investment in infrastructure:

The lack of maintenance overhead required in comparison to the demands of an apartment building is one of the attractive traits of MHPs as an investment opportunity. Owners collect rent from tenants, enjoy land appreciation at the time of sale, and can keep a minimal operating budget.

The study also goes into detail on how an MHP can be inadequately configured to meet current needs:

The size of individual manufactured housing units has expanded over time, but lot sizes in older parks have not changed. In Kent, the result is that many parks have homes that are larger than the original platting was intended to accommodate, which reduces the required separation between units.

The last section in Kent’s study provides substantive recommendations that tie together the overall goal to “support the City’s future policymaking for MHPs including strategies to preserve MHPs where they provide quality, safe, affordable housing for Kent’s residents.” Some of the major recommendations include:

The study offers more details about these recommendations.

A key finding of Kent’s study is that “ manufactured home parks fill an important, affordable niche between apartments and single-family housing." This is evident in Exhibit 10, taken from the study and included below, which shows that affordability, privacy, and a sense of ownership are key reasons why current Kent MHP residents enjoy living in mobile homes.

Kent's MHP study sets a solid foundation for future planning and decision-making by analyzing the current conditions of the MHPs, undertaking relevant stakeholder engagement, and being cognizant of what the city is currently doing and what obstacles may be in its way for future actions. The city will be utilizing these study results when undertaking an upcoming major update (i.e., periodic update) to its comprehensive plan, as required for all GMA-planning local governments.

The Kent study also serves as a useful model for other local governments to consider when assessing its housing needs, especially those interested in retaining existing MHPs as a valuable affordable housing option. A future MRSC blog post will focus on how some local governments in Washington State are using MHP zones to encourage the continued existence of MHPs in their communities.

Here are additional resources on MHP policies and regulations:

MRSC is a private nonprofit organization serving local governments in Washington State. Eligible government agencies in Washington State may use our free, one-on-one Ask MRSC service to get answers to legal, policy, or financial questions.

Justin Sharer joined MRSC in July 2021 as a Public Policy intern. He is pursuing a Master’s in Public Policy from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and is specializing in environmental policy.

Justin has previous experience interning in the California Central Coast region with both the City of Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay Economic Partnership where he worked on topics including climate action, sustainability, and equity.

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