“Today, Manhattan Plaza has several waiting lists of over 600 people. Like most of the city, the development’s surrounding neighborhood has undergone a complete transformation, and it now sits on prime real estate. Related Companies purchased the complex in 2004 and extended its Section 8 contract, which requires renewal regularly. Elliot says there is a new plan to build 1,500 affordable housing units for artists in New York City.”
Photo by Abbey Hambright via flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
“Generations of racist government policies such as redlining, the razing of neighborhoods to build highways, and exclusionary zoning has created deeply segregated and unequal neighborhoods. These policies both prevented people of color from accessing resources where they lived and from moving to suburban neighborhoods where resources were being invested.”
“Advocates and renters argue that protecting tenants is good policy because it advances equity, economic opportunity, and even a healthier environment.”
Thanks to Shelterforce for publishing such articles as this one.
[Shelterforce Note: This article is adapted from the IGNITE! Community Pitch Fest, held at the Grounded Solutions Intersections 2017 conference on Oct. 11, 2017. Out of 20 entriesand 6 finalists, audience members chose Public Advocates’ pitch as the winner.]
“With the motivated resident leaders that these two parks have, we have seen success in the cooperative model throughout Vermont, New Hampshire and elsewhere. Cooperative ownership can lead to improved quality of life and maintain the long-term affordability for the park’s residents. It creates thriving communities where residents can continue to own their home, collectively own the surrounding land and prosper.”
St. George & Hinesburg, VT – A coalition of two mobile home park cooperatives of St. George Villa MHP and Sunset Lake Villa MHP are working feverishly to purchase their respective parks from private ownership and have put forth their best offer to purchase the parks. At a public meeting Wednesday, December 13, 2017, residents heard from their cooperative board’s terms of making an offer, including the engineer’s inspection report and property appraisal completed with financial support from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. The best initial offer the cooperative can make will be limited to the appraised value they’ve received of $6,025,000.00; this is well short of the current asking price registered with the State of Vermont for the two parks of $6,950,000.00.
With the motivated resident leaders that these two parks have, we have seen success in the cooperative model throughout Vermont, New Hampshire and elsewhere. Cooperative ownership can lead to improved quality of life and maintain the long-term affordability for the park’s residents. It creates thriving communities where residents can continue to own their home, collectively own the surrounding land and prosper.
Residents, knowing it’s a long shot for the owner to accept their offer are still proceeding for their once in a generation opportunity to bring their park out of private investors hands and under the control of the residents who live there. Residents thus far have been successful in exercising their petitioned rights under Vermont law, allowing them up to 165 days to make an offer. They know it is an uphill battle with potential outside bidders willing to offer significantly more.
CVOEO’s Mobile Home Program providing residents support about their rights under state law and the Cooperative Development Institute providing technical purchase, and cooperative management assistance will continue to stand with residents through this process. A process we have seen the first-hand transform the lives of the residents living cooperatively owned communities
The coming days and weeks will tell if the resident’s offer will be accepted. In making the offer, the resident cooperative is willing to raise their current lot-rents now so they can see their money reinvested into the resident-owned land to keep long-term affordability. The long-term affordability is particularly important given that Vermont and specifically Chittenden County struggles to provide adequate, affordable housing supply to its residents. Under new private ownership, it’s most likely they will also see lot-rents increased for investor gain. We are hoping the informed and responsible offer made by residents will prevail.
Housing Perspectives (from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies) The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies advances understanding of housing issues and informs policy.
“… We’re finally seeing the record growth in renters slow down, but while the market has responded to rental housing needs for higher-income households, there are alarming trends that suggest a growing inability to supply housing that is affordable for middle- and working-class renters, let alone those with very low incomes. Addressing these challenges will require bold leadership and hard choices from both the public and private sector.”
“The House and Senate tax bills could be detrimental to an already struggling affordable housing situation in Vermont, according to estimates released by the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.”
“In this brief, [Jessica A. Carson and Marybeth J. Mattingly] use interview and focus group data to describe some of the ways that restricted rural housing stock affects working families in two rural New England counties, and explore solutions proposed by rural residents and experts to make housing affordable …
…
“Subsidies and publicly funded programs can play a part in alleviating the challenges of affordable rural housing, but addressing the issue of affordable housing in rural places will require a variety of approaches. For instance, at the local level, residents can encourage local zoning and planning boards to align town regulations with “inclusionary zoning” practices, such as requiring a certain percentage of housing units to meet affordability standards and offering incentives to developers for constructing affordable dwellings. Municipalities might also loosen or alter zoning restrictions to reduce lot size requirements and allow construction of structures other than traditional single-family
dwellings, including duplexes, in-law apartments, backyard cottages, townhouses, or bungalow courts.”
Building homes for extremely low-income people allows other homes to filter up to people in need—a better bet than waiting for luxury units to trickle down.
Author, Miriam Axel-Lute – November 2, 2017
“There’s a lot of talk about how homes will “filter down.” The argument goes that building new luxury housing will allow the wealthiest people to move into new housing, and (if the supply outstrips demand), eventually what had been high-end housing will command less money and will “filter down” to be affordable to lower income levels. Just how well this works, for whom, and how quickly is the subject of muchdebate, which I won’t wade into right now.”
“But here’s the thing we don’t talk about enough: developing affordable housing in a tight, high-cost market also increases overall affordability through filtering! Just in the other direction—it trickles up.”
“Today, Manhattan Plaza has several waiting lists of over 600 people. Like most of the city, the development’s surrounding neighborhood has undergone a complete transformation, and it now sits on prime real estate. Related Companies purchased the complex in 2004 and extended its Section 8 contract, which requires renewal regularly. Elliot says there is a new plan to build 1,500 affordable housing units for artists in New York City.”
The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies advances understanding of housing issues and informs policy.
