Affordable mobile homes are disappearing in Asheville; code change could bring some back

ASHEVILLE - In a steep housing market, with rents in Asheville the most expensive in the state, manufactured homes represent some of the most affordable housing options around, according to city staff.

But mobile homes are incrementally disappearing. Slowly but surely, mobile home parks and other areas where they previously existed are seeing attrition, as current code language prevents the replacement of lawfully established manufactured homes if the home has been removed and the space vacant for more than 180 days.

“This has been happening over a number of years," said Affordable Housing Officer Sasha Vrtunksi. "The park is still there, it’s still in use, but they’re slowly losing units."

After a presentation from Vrtunski and Zoning Administrator Ricky Hurley, the Planning and Zoning Commission voted Oct. 5 to approve a minor Unified Development Ordinance amendment, one that would allow the replacement of homes in existing manufactured housing park spaces.

If not in a manufactured housing park or community, but still within the qualified overlay district, the code amendment would allow replacement of a home within 365 days. It maintains the 180-day limit for replacement in all other zoning areas.

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It also includes minor updates to manufactured housing definitions to comply with North Carolina General Statutes.

Final say on the amendments rests with City Council Oct. 25.

It's not a huge code change, Hurley told the Citizen Times, and it only stands to bring a handful of spaces back online immediately ― such as lots left vacant in a mobile home park, now unable to be occupied despite having an address and utility hookups ― but it will make a big impact for people in those neighborhoods, he said.

It also makes all the difference for mobile homeowners who face catastrophic damages to their units, with insurance stringing them along longer than 180 days, or for trailers in desperate need of replacement that can't be done in a six-month window.

“It’s a slow moving crisis that’s happening,” he said of the disappearance of these homes, and of other affordable units lost to demolition, conversion or gentrification.

In Asheville, mobile homes are allowed only within the Manufactured Housing Overlay District or the Manufactured Housing Community Overlay District, which all totaled, likely makes up less than 1% of Asheville's acreage, he said.

Staff does not anticipate that these changes will have any noticeable impacts on neighborhoods. It will not allow for expansion of mobile home parks.

'Get in front of this crisis'

Vrtunski said manufactured homes represent some of the deepest levels of affordability in Asheville, around 30-40% of area median income.

According to the city's appendix, 30% AMI is $15,800 for a one-person household and $18,050 for a two-person.

She said the proposed amendment is a first step in a larger conversation, with the city's Affordable Housing Advisory Committee advocating for manufactured homes to be explored as part of a solution for the city's affordable housing crisis.

Committee chair Barry Bialik said the amendment is “a good start.”

From here, he hopes the committee will continue to explore opportunities to use manufactured homes to create more affordable housing stock.

“It’s blurring, the difference between a manufactured home, a modular home and a stick-built home. It’s blurring already. We need to be open-minded to allow all sorts of innovative housing or traditional housing to happen,” Bialik said. “We shouldn’t be restricting in our time.”

Hurley said, in general, the city's UDO is not mobile home-friendly, and that this is the beginning of a pivot in the zoning profession, as well, to reevaluate this type of housing.

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Current ordinances have been suppressing manufactured housing, causing a "disinvestment" in the model. While he doesn't want to cause gentrification in mobile home parks, or displacement of current residents, he wants to be sure people can maintain the homes that they have.

“Sometimes, it’s just cheaper and more efficient to preserve what you’ve got than to keep constructing new,” Hurley said.

While current attrition has been a slow bleed of existing units, he said, it was important to address it before it escalated.

"It’s a problem and eventually it turns into a crisis at some point," Hurley said. "We want to get in front of this crisis.”

Affordable solutions?

Trish Sharpe, onsite manager of Bear Creek Manufactured Home Community in West Asheville, said there is such high demand for mobile homes at Bear Creek, their units are rarely left unoccupied for more than a month.

The community has 38 units and a duplex.

But an amendment change would make it easier for tenants who leave and want to take their trailers with them − ensuring delays wouldn't render a site unusable.

“I have had a flood of people looking for singlewides or lots available, ready to move in,” Sharpe said. “It’s crazy how high the demand is for a manufactured home at this point."

For young families or older people on a fixed income, it's among the only affordable options in Asheville, she said.

“An average person, income-wise, cannot pull that off easily,” she said of Asheville's typical rents, a steep price to pay versus the monthly lot rent of $450 at Bear Creek.

Sharpe said there is a need and demand for more mobile homes in the city.

“I see these HUD houses and affordable housing and starter houses going up and all these different development communities, and it’s like, the mobile home community just got forgotten," she said.

Ponkho Bermejo, co-director of BeLoved Asheville and a community organizer, was also glad to hear of this proposed amendment for Asheville's mobile homes.

He said it was a step toward thinking more about the city's workers.

“When I think about people living in mobile homes, I’m thinking the people cleaning the hotels, the people cooking in restaurants, cleaning the dishes … it will open more opportunities, and be harder to remove the trailer parks from communities," Bermejo said.

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With the search for affordable housing a strain on almost anyone house or apartment-hunting in Asheville, mobile homes are often one of the only options − and one of the least expensive.

He said whatever could be done to keep trailer parks and mobile homes closer to the city, rather than forcing downtown workers to commute in from the county, is helpful to the overall health of Asheville.

Hurley said staff has no other amendments to the city's mobile home ordinances in the works, but that this opens the door to continued conversation, a community-wide effort he expects will come out of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee's continued discussions.

“Affordable housing needs to have a multi-pronged approach. You can’t just build affordable apartments, you need lots of different types of housing," Hurkey said. “It’s going to take everything. It takes all of it. We are recognizing that manufactured housing is a part of that."

Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com or message on Twitter at @slhonosky.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville's affordable housing crisis: Are mobile homes the answer?