New LegislationWould Aid Mobile-Home Owners

STEVE LAW
Statesman Journal
February 25, 2007
When Terra and Gary Stull bought their first home in Keizer's Berkshire Estates in 1998, it was a dream come true.
For $1,500 down, they moved into a new manufactured home with three bedrooms, two baths, oak kitchen cabinets and 1,420 square feet of living space. But like many who live in manufactured-home parks, Berkshire residents owned their homes but rented the land beneath them.
For the Stulls, rent was $320 per month plus payments on their $80,000 mortgage.
"It was a nice community to live in. They kept it real quiet," Terra Stull said.
The dream soured in April, when a neighbor spotted a city land-use notice on a nearby utility pole. Word quickly spread that Berkshire Estates was being redeveloped into a subdivision of "stick-built" homes.
By June, the Stulls and about 100 other homeowners were notified they had to move by Feb. 4 of this year.
Vacancies in other parks, often called mobile home parks, were scarce. So the homes' values fell. Homes at Berkshire that were newer and nicer than the Stulls' were selling for $25,000, the Stulls said, and relocating theirs would cost $15,000.
"We couldn't afford to move our home, so we ended up letting it go back to the bank, and we're going through bankruptcy," Terra Stull said. "We didn't have any choice. We owed almost $80,000 on the house."
The Stulls are luckier than many Berkshire Estates residents because they're still working, she said. Many are retirees, who find it harder to start anew. The Stulls, resettled in a Keizer apartment, said they would never buy another manufactured home.
"What keeps it from happening again?" Stull said. "It's happening all over the state of Oregon because there's no legislation to prevent it."
Closures abound
As real estate sizzles in Oregon, converting manufactured home parks into traditional subdivisions or other uses is tempting. Park owners have gotten cold calls from Seattle developers waving "gobs of money" to sell their sites, said John VanLandingham, a Legal Aid lawyer who helps coordinate the Manufactured Housing Landlord/Tenant Coalition.
Thunderbird Mobile Club in Wilsonville is the latest. Last week, the landlord notified 270 homeowners that they must move by March 2008.
Thirty-one home parks have closed in Oregon the past two years, displacing 1,500 households, according to State Rep. Jerry Krummel, R-Wilsonville.
Krummel helped pass a $10,000 tax credit for evicted homeowners in the 2005 legislative session. He's championing the issue again with other lawmakers and the landlord/tenant coalition.
No one is contending that Berkshire is doing anything illegal, and proposed bills would not prevent closures. But they could ease the financial pain for displaced homeowners such as the Stulls.
Bills in the works
One of Krummel's bills would renew the $10,000 tax credit and eliminate the $60,000 income cap for qualifying, as well as the $110,000 cap on the value of the home. The Stulls couldn't get the tax credit because they earn a combined $64,000.
Rep. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, is sponsoring a bill to require cities and counties to mail land-use notices to manufactured home owners in the affected area.
Now the owners are ignored because they are classified as renters -- they do not own the spaces on which their homes sit.
Some bills would make it easier for homeowners to buy the land under their homes. In New Hampshire, 70 parks have been purchased by manufactured home owners, said Dawn Phillips, an aide to Krummel and Thatcher.
The main legislation, House Bill 2735, incorporates Krummel's tax-credit provisions and proposals fashioned by the landlord/tenant coalition.
Coalition members have learned they must forge compromises to get the votes of Democrats and Republicans, VanLandingham said.
HB 2735 requires owners to pay displaced home owners $5,000 to $9,000, based on the size of their unit. Owners must give at least one year's notice before evictions. Tenants would no longer be charged for abandoning their homes on site, a common practice that often costs them several thousand dollars, VanLandingham said.
Industry benefits
Park owners, who prefer to call them manufactured-housing communities, won some concessions in the compromise bill. Their property value would be frozen for five years after they redevelop the site. The legislation also would pre-empt municipalities from enacting stricter ordinances. That would nullify pro-tenant ordinances in Wilsonville, Eugene, Bend and Oregon City.
Wilsonville requires landowners to reimburse tenants for all costs, find them a new location or buy the unit from them. A Clackamas County judge recently found the ordinance unconstitutional.
Chuck Carpenter, a former lawmaker who runs an industry group called the Manufactured Housing Communities of Oregon, said HB 2735 is a fair compromise.
The $10,000 tax credit, combined with direct payments to mobile home owners, means "some of their basic expenses will be met," Carpenter said. "We do know this is the most generous package that tenants are getting anywhere in the United States," he said.
State Sen. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby, the co-chairman of the Legislature's budget-writing committee, said Krummel's proposal to create a multimillion-dollar loan fund to aid mobile home owners is a stretch.
But he said HB 2735 has better prospects.
"I think it's smart for us to go with the deal that the owners and tenants have bought off on," Schrader said. "I'm very supportive of trying to find the money there."
slaw@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6615