Cities Oppose Mobile Home Relocation Committee Says State Needs More Affordable Housing, But Opponents Argue Older Models Are Unsafe

Idaho needs all the affordable housing it can get, members of a legislative committee declared Wednesday, as they cleared laws making it easier to relocate old mobile homes.

But the Association of Idaho Cities warned that the legislation could force cities to approve unsafe homes that never were required to meet modern building or safety codes.

“They’re firetraps, and they always have been,” said Teri Ottens of the AIC.

“Cities aren’t trying to get rid of affordable housing. What they’re trying to do is provide safe housing for all their residents, whether you are poor or rich.”

Though Ottens said many cities have expressed concerns about the legislation, the AIC hasn’t finished formulating its position on the bill, and its representatives didn’t attend Wednesday’s committee hearing.

Only two people spoke to the Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee on the legislation Wednesday: Greg Panter, lobbyist for the Idaho Manufactured Housing Association, and Sen. Cecil Ingram, R-Boise.

Ingram served on Gov. Phil Batt’s affordable housing task force, which studied affordable housing issues over the summer and brought the idea forward.

Many cities and counties across the state, including some in North Idaho, have banned the relocation of mobile homes manufactured before 1976. That’s the year mobile homes first had to meet building and fire codes.

Said Ingram, “We were astonished to find out there were 40,000 of these homes across the state of Idaho.”

Rep. Larry Watson, D-Wallace, said last month that he researched the issue and discovered that 60 percent of the mobile homes in Shoshone County were manufactured before 1976. “It has a huge impact,” he said.

Said Panter, “They’re taking what for many people is the largest asset they own, and rendering that asset of no value.”

Panter said county assessors have pointed out a problem: Once a city or county declares the home can’t be moved, its value plummets, forcing taxes to be adjusted downward as well.

And if the owner is evicted from a mobile home park, the home has to be thrown away, he said.

Panter and Ingram presented two bills to the committee:

SB 1372 says cities and counties must treat plans for subdivisions of mobile homes the same as subdivisions of site-built homes.

SB 1373 allows owners of pre-1976 mobiles homes to rehabilitate their homes by adding smoke detectors, insulating and venting around furnaces, adding egress windows in all sleeping rooms, updating electrical systems and having gas and water pipes checked. Once those requirements are met, the home can be certified as rehabilitated, and cities or counties must allow it to be relocated just like a newer mobile home.

“This program is strictly voluntary,” Panter said.

He estimated the upgrading would cost $500 to $1,000.

“It at least gives them the opportunity to preserve the investment they have in the home,” Panter said.

Said Ingram, “The obvious answer is to go ahead and allow these individuals to fix their homes up.”

Ottens, however, said the bill’s requirements still wouldn’t bring the old mobile homes up to code.

“Even if you rehabilitate it, fix it up, put it in a neighborhood, if it catches fire and doesn’t meet the building and fire codes, there’s going to be a danger.”

Sen. Evan Frasure, R-Pocatello, said the language in the rehabilitation bill worried him because it suggested the old mobile homes could be moved into existing neighborhoods. One modest neighborhood in his home city has many vacant lots, Frasure said, but that doesn’t mean its residents would want old mobile homes moved onto them.

He pointed to wording in the bill that says, “No zoning or other ordinance or policy of the local jurisdiction” can prevent the relocation if the home has a rehabilitation certificate.

“They can put ‘em pretty well anywhere they want to,” Frasure said.

But Panter said another section of state law limits that.

That law, passed in 1996 at Panter’s urging, bans cities and counties from declaring that mobile homes aren’t allowed in a particular zone. But it also allows them to set standards requiring mobile homes to have a certain square footage, to use siding or roofing materials that match those of other homes in the zone, or to have garages.

The committee voted 6-1 to send both bills to the full Senate for a vote, with only Frasure dissenting.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CURRENT LAWS Many cities and counties across the state, including some in North Idaho, have banned the relocation of mobile homes manufactured before 1976.