Preservation or Redevelopment: Options, Conditions, and Risks Facing Mobile Home Parks in Anchorage, Alaska, and the Case for Affordable Housing

Abstract

According to the Municipal Assessor’s Office, 5% of Anchorage’s housing units, or 4,700 units, are mobile homes. Mobile homes represent an important affordable housing resource in the community; however, market forces and aging infrastructure in older parks have resulted in numerous closures that have eliminated at least 535 lots in the past six years. Units are often more than forty years old, and unable to be moved without incurring significant damage. Evicted tenants of those parks can lose their lifetime housing investment in a single notice, a result of the tenuous scenario of owning a home but having no control over the land on which the home sits. Public investment in mobile homes, through housing grant and rehab programs, has too often been directed to substandard mobile homes in leasehold communities. While these programs address health and safety issues, they do little to improve the overall quality of housing stock, much less contribute to asset building potential that comes from traditional homeownership investment. The Municipality of Anchorage would like to better understand the existing conditions of its mobile home parks, as well as the condition of manufactured homes within those parks. Some parks, based on zoning, condition, size, and location, may be viable neighborhoods that should be preserved as long-term housing. Park preservation examples from around the country, through conversion to cooperatively-owned or land trust models, have demonstrated the benefits of helping residents achieve safe, secure, and asset building potential in housing. A cooperatively owned park would also provide an opportunity for public grant programs to invest in new housing units for low- and moderate-income households, in a location in which long-term land control has been secured. Alternatively, given that mobile homes in Anchorage are one of the most affordable forms of housing, consideration should be made to enact inclusionary zoning policies on mobile home park land; in other words, when the parks themselves are redeveloped, incentives and requirements should be considered so that affordable housing is developed once the old “trailers” are vacated. This paper examines the number and condition of Anchorage mobile home parks, and creates an index identifying those parks most at risk for closure. It examines the regulatory and market forces that serve as impediments to park preservation. Utilizing lessons learned from other parts of the country, the paper examines the tools, resources, and strategies for preserving and improving parks. Finally, a general discussion of inclusionary housing is included in order to examine redevelopment alternatives that preserve the units of affordable housing, if not the mobile homes themselves.