Seeking to preserve an endangered type of affordable housing, the Bellingham Planning Commission on July 7 proposed new rules that would prevent the city’s 10 existing manufactured home parks from being redeveloped.
The Commission voted 4–2 to include all 10 parks, including Samish Mobile Home Park on Samish Way, which is located in an area the city had targeted earlier for substantial redevelopment.
Samish park owner Michael Reams had asked to be left out of zoning overlays city officials have proposed for manufactured home parks. Under the overlays, park owners would not be able to redevelop their properties without requesting a special hearing.
Reams suggested at a June 16 Planning Commission meeting he would be willing to create more affordable units if he were allowed to redevelop the site, which has 28 mobile homes with approximately 50 residents.
Planning Commissioners Barbara Plaskett and Scott Jones spoke on behalf of Samish residents who would be displaced if the property were redeveloped. The commissioners said tenants would be forced into homelessness or out of Bellingham if they were removed from the mobile home park.
“They have built lives here. They have built communities here,” Plaskett said, “and we are talking about removing people from their lives.”
The Planning Commission’s proposed rules also included a requirement that manufactured home park owners give tenants the option of purchasing the property if they intended to sell it. The Commission expanded that requirement to include not just the tenants but also organizations that may be in a better financial position to make the purchase while keeping the homes affordable: local governments, tribes, housing authorities, land trusts and other nonprofits.
The Commission also recommended the city set aside funds to help mobile-home owners relocate if a park closes. At the suggestion of Chairperson Mike Estes, the Commission proposed a 30-year limit on the new protections, giving the city the option to reevaluate its development needs.
The Commission’s recommendations will be considered in the coming weeks by the Bellingham City Council, which will make the final decision on the manufactured home park rules. The public will have a chance to weigh in at a City Council public hearing, at a date to be determined.
