October 12, 2006
The Cowichan Valley is a growing region, and this growth is changing the face of the communities in the area. Change, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing but I'm concerned whenever there are people who are not able to share in the benefits of the changes. One person's progress can put another person in jeopardy - and that is something that a civil society needs to be aware of. Progress must be for the greater good, or it's not progress at all. Change may be inevitable, but change that unfairly penalizes an identifiable group or segment of society is unacceptable.
Folks who live in manufactured home parks may be one such group. I recently met with 120+ manufactured home owners at Kerry Park Rec Centre in Mill Bay, at a meeting hosted by ACTIVE Manufactured Home Association. I was joined by Doug Routley, MLA for Cowichan-Ladysmith, and we gathered to discuss topics of concern to this segment of the community. Manufactured home ownership is one of the few independent, affordable housing options still available to seniors and others living on restricted incomes. The issues facing these people are unique because this type of home ownership is unique. A manufactured home owner owns their home but they rent the land it sits on from the park-owner. This makes them home-owner and residential tenant at the same time. Provincial legislation called the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act (MHPTA) tries to deal with some of the ambiguities but it falls short. The Act may provide a reasonable terms-of-reference for the park-owner and the home-owner, under normal circumstances... but these aren't normal circumstances! The development boom in the area is creating an imbalance that, if left un-checked, could create an injustice. The value of manufactured homes typically remains steady or depreciates, while - in a ‘hot' market - the value of the land they are sitting on rises exponentially. In these circumstances park-owners can profit immensely, while home-owners risk losing big time.
Many park-owners know they have a moral obligation to those who live in the park and they won't cash-in at the home-owners expense. After all, home-owners contribute to the overall value of the park through their rent and, often, through upgrades to their yard and home exterior. So, for a park-owner to sell the park out from under the home-owners - paying them only the minimum required by the MHPTA - while they, themselves, make out like bandits would be seen by most good people as blatantly unfair. Since there are always some bad apples in any barrel, however, we do need regulations. What I'm really talking about is a vision and a development philosophy, where all the interested parties work together to figure out ways to create balance between park-owners and home-owners, for the betterment of the whole community.
There are ways to create safeguards that balance the interests of the home owner and the land owner during changing times. For starters, I think the compensation formula offered under the MHPTA needs to be reconsidered, and I will lobby hard in the House and in the halls of the Legislature for that. Of course, rezoning and redevelopment is where the action is these days and land-use decisions belong to Local Government. That's why the CVRD and municipal governments in the region are trying to find ways of ensuring fairness for manufactured home owners in the face of rising land values and redevelopment fever.
There are ways to nurture and preserve the integrity of our community, even - or especially - in this period of growth and development. The key to success is getting involved and holding elected officials from all levels of government, developers, and other decision-makers, to account. You can do this by being a part of the process of coming up with constructive, positive approaches to the changes. Go to a council meeting, write your MLA, join a community group and be a part things. The group that hosted the meeting I attended is called the ACTIVE Manufactured Home Association. If you live in a mobile home and want to find out more, call them at (250) 544-1456.
