EVERETT — New zoning intended to preserve mobile home parks from redevelopment passed the Snohomish County Council on Wednesday, giving heart to tenants and heartburn to some park owners.
The zoning seeks to keep 28 parks as they are in unincorporated, residentially zoned areas of the county. Parks in rural and commercial areas are not affected.
“What we are discussing today is competing property rights, the people who own the dirt and the people who own the units,” Councilman Dave Gossett said.
While he said the new law wasn’t without problems, Gossett decided to vote for it because the status quo favored land owners over tenants.
The changes passed with a 4-1 council vote. Councilman John Koster cast a “no” vote because he sees it as violating property rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
“We have an ordinance before us that I believe is fraught with issues,” Koster said.
Koster feared the change would spark a legal challenges.
John Woodring, an attorney with the park owners group Manufactured Housing Communities of Washington, strongly objected to the zoning because he said it shifts the burden for affordable housing onto one class of landowners instead of society as a whole.
His group has filed a lawsuit challenging a similar law in Tumwater, which remains pending in federal court.
“It violates our constitutional property rights, and we will be protecting our rights,” Woodring said after the council decision. “That’s what we’ve done in Tumwater already.”
The park owners group favors tax breaks over zoning as a tool to encourage the preservation of existing parks and the development of new ones.
On Tuesday, the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board ruled in favor of Tumwater’s mobile home park zone on eight of nine issues unrelated to the lawsuit.
Four seniors from Carriage Club Estates, a 55-and-over park in south Everett, were pleased with the council’s decision.
Diane Navicky, 68, said more than 70 percent of the park’s 300-plus residents are seniors. Some tenants older than 90 often tell her they can’t sleep at night for fear of being forced to move. Many of the homes are too old to relocate, and the residents can’t afford to demolish them.
“I think the decision is wonderful,” she said. “This is going to buy us some time.”
The zoning that passed included changes intended to ease land-use restrictions for the park owners. One amendment allows owners to apply for zoning changes through the county hearing examiner, instead of going through the more cumbersome land-use docket that the County Council oversees. Other amendments give owners the chance to use parks for other uses beyond mobile homes, including retirement housing and certain public facilities.
A zone for mobile home parks has been under discussion in Snohomish County for about two years. To buy time, the council for the past 18 months has been extending a temporary ban on redeveloping mobile home parks.
The council on Wednesday passed another emergency extension of the ban, which will last for another six months or until the permanent zone takes hold, whichever is sooner. The new zone still needs County Executive Aaron Reardon’s signature to become law.
Noah Haglund: nhaglund@heraldnet.com; 425-339-3465.
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