Manufactured homes are houses that have a chassis. They\u2019re regulated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. They\u2019re what you typically think of when you think of a mobile home or a trailer.<\/p>\n
Manufactured homes house 1,274 Steamboat residents, with most of them \u2013 870 people \u2013 owning their homes, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau\u2019s 2017 American Community Survey compiled by local economist Scott Ford.<\/p>\n
There are 503 manufactured homes in Steamboat city limits, which account for about 5% of the city\u2019s total housing units. It\u2019s also the greatest concentration of manufactured homes in Routt County.<\/p>\n
According to data from the Routt County Assessor\u2019s Office, there are a total of 788 manufactured homes in 20 parks around the county.<\/p>\n
The average value of a manufactured home in city limits is about $42,000, according to Census data, while the average home value in Steamboat is $515,900.<\/p>\n
In most manufactured home parks, people own their home but not the land underneath it. Frequently, they pay lot rent to the owner of the park.<\/p>\n
While manufactured homes are frequently called mobile homes, they\u2019re not that mobile. Many are too old to move. Relocating them requires disconnecting utilities, packing up and preparing an occupied house to allow it to safely travel down a highway. And, even if it can be moved, a manufactured home owner still has to find a place to move it to.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never seen a scenario where somebody successfully removed their trailer by hitching it to something and dragging it away,\u201d said Jason Peasley, executive director of the Yampa Valley Housing Authority, the organization that owns and operates Fish Creek Mobile Home Park in Steamboat.<\/p>\n
\u2018A silver lining\u2019<\/div>\n
Allevato Payton lived in Westland for a little over 12 years. She had a three-bedroom manufactured home with a fireplace, and she earned extra income renting out two of those bedrooms to seasonal workers who came every winter to work at Steamboat Resort.<\/p>\n
At the end of Westland\u2019s existence, she emerged as a leader in that community, frequently speaking to City Council and the developers in an effort to keep lot rents affordable and get compensation for residents of the park.<\/p>\n
She knew Westland was for sale when she bought her manufactured home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided, because I knew the land was for sale forever, that I would be the last person that lived there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The three years between notification of the Riverwalk proposal and her eviction were tumultuous ones.<\/p>\n
She could no longer rent out her home, so she started working three jobs to afford the increases in lot rent when Riverwalk took ownership of the park. She initially explored moving her manufactured home, but ultimately, asbestos and the home\u2019s age made her abandon the idea. She became a renter, which was made more complicated by the fact that she had pets.<\/p>\n
She ended up moving into a small house in Steamboat II, then a garage before getting married and moving to Craig about 50 miles west.<\/p>\n
Over the long-term, though, while it shook up her life, the end of Westland was also a new beginning for her.<\/p>\n
Riverwalk ultimately purchased two blocks of Yampa Street right-of-way from the city of Steamboat for about $950,000.<\/p>\n
That money funded two outcomes. $550,000 was divvied up between residents and manufactured home owners based on how long they\u2019d lived there and the value of their homes. Westland homeowners received an average of $19,400. The city passed the remaining $400,000 onto the Yampa Valley Housing Authority in the form of a low-interest loan, which the Housing Authority then used to purchase Fish Creek Mobile Home Park in 2007.<\/p>\n
With her share of the relocation money, Allevato Payton got her real estate broker\u2019s license. With the recession in full swing, that didn\u2019t pan out for her, but it set her on a path to getting married and eventually moving down valley.<\/p>\n
Now, deer regularly appear in the front yard of the home she owns with her husband in Craig. She still spends time in Steamboat, playing music with her husband at restaurants. She still has a ski pass, though it takes longer to get to the mountain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ended up getting really blessed marrying a wonderful husband, and moving down here and buying my own home,\u201d she said. \u201cIt worked out well for me, and I\u2019ve seen other people \u2013 through the mobile home park \u2013 where it\u2019s worked out well for them. They just bought another home. I guess it\u2019s all attitude. It\u2019s 90% attitude and 10% what happens to you, because life changes constantly, and things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
She guessed that about 10% to 30% of her old neighbors moved out of the Yampa Valley. Others, she said, used the relocation money to purchase manufactured homes in other parks in Steamboat or other homes in the area. She said the relocation money allowed those who received it to reconstruct their lives.<\/p>\n
The relocation money didn\u2019t carry significant benefit for all of the park\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n
Stephanie Blake was renting a manufactured home in Westland when news of its proposed demolition broke. She can\u2019t remember if she got any of the relocation money. If she did, she said, \u201cit was small enough that it didn\u2019t do a whole lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
She and her then-husband cobbled together enough money to pay a deposit on a rental in Dream Island. Now, she lives in a condominium in city limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a struggle to come up with the money, and it was a struggle to find a new place to live, but we did it, and it was OK,\u201d Blake said.<\/p>\n
She and her family had never intended to live in Westland for the long haul, and she feels worse for the longtime owners whose homes were demolished.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were so in a hurry to get rid of everybody, and then there it sat empty for years and years and years,\u201d Blake added. \u201cI guess some things are in the works now, but I just wonder what the hurry was to get everybody out of there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Early 2000s: an era of change<\/div>\n
The demolition of Westland was not the only redevelopment of manufactured home parks in Steamboat, though it did result in the most residents being displaced.<\/p>\n
At the turn of the millennium, two other sagas played out in local manufactured home parks with very different endings: at Trailer Haven and Hilltop Homes.<\/p>\n
In late 2000, when their park was offered for sale, 17 manufactured-home owners in the Hilltop Homes manufactured home park on Harms Court across from Steamboat Springs High School purchased the park under a limited liability company. The city agreed to allow the owners to subdivide the lots, and each manufactured home owner went from renting land to owning the small plots under their homes. Today, some of those owners have built small, stick-built homes in their place.<\/p>\n
Trailer Haven was an 11-home manufactured home park located on Fish Creek Falls Road and Third Street. In June 2000, the Steamboat Springs Health and Recreation Association \u2013 the organization that now operates as Old Town Hot Springs \u2013 purchased the park. Residents of the park received $4,000 for leaving, and the Hot Springs paid to have the homes removed from the site.<\/p>\n
Trailer Haven residents retained legal representation. They requested city council require developers, in this case the Hot Springs, to help them find land and relocate the homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey came before City Council and were asking for City Council to put in some requirements, that they be taken care of \u2013 not just the owners of the park but the owners of the individual mobile homes, which of course, rent space. They don\u2019t own the land their trailers are on, so they really had no rights,\u201d said Jim Engelken, who served on the Steamboat Springs City Council at the time.o change that to some degree.\u201d<\/p>\n
A new ordinance emerged, though it didn\u2019t require compensation or land to relocate the homes to.<\/p>\n
Ordinance 1804, the \u201cPreservation of Mobile Home Housing Ordinance,\u201d was passed in August 2001.<\/p>\n
It created additional requirements on developers when they intend to change the land use of a manufactured home park. From then on, any developer, including Riverwalk, was required to apply for a conditional use permit, which involved compiling an impact report. Names and addresses of each manufactured home owner.<\/p>\n
Unit numbers, the age and characteristics of each home.<\/em>How many people occupied a home.<\/em>A list of manufactured home sites in comparable parks within a 50-mile radius and a schedule of rental rates for each of those parks.<\/em>A relocation plan including the proposed date for closing the park and detailing any relocation assistance payments.<\/em>Conceptual plans describing the new land use.<\/em>Certification that residents and owners of a park were each issued a copy of the impact report.<\/em>The payments to manufactured homeowners in Westland weren\u2019t required under this ordinance but were negotiated between the residents, owners, Riverwalk and the city.<\/p>\n\u201cThe neat thing was that nobody in the state of Colorado had ever been able to get compensation from an owner,\u201d Allevato Payton said. \u201cWe did buy Fish Creek Mobile Home Park, too, and that\u2019ll never happen to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Future of manufactured homes<\/div>\n
Steamboat currently has four major manufactured home parks: Fish Creek, Dream Island, West Acres and Sleepy Bear. Of those, two could be protected by their zoning.<\/p>\n
Steamboat Springs Planning and Community Development Director Rebecca Bessey explained that manufactured homes are only allowed within the manufactured home zone district. Dream Island and West Acres mobile home parks are zoned that way, which allows for manufactured homes, modular homes and stick-built homes.<\/p>\n
Bessey said that ultimately, only developers can say which park is the most likely to be redeveloped.<\/p>\n
Two parks, Fish Creek and Sleepy Bear, are zoned for commercial use.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that that would probably make it easier to redevelop those,\u201d Bessey said, qualifying that a developer would still have to obtain a conditional-use permit under the Preservation of Mobile Home Housing Ordinance.<\/p>\n
The city considers those parks a legal non-conforming use, so a planning code enforcement officer isn\u2019t going to come knocking on residents\u2019 doors.<\/p>\n
Peasley said the Yampa Valley Housing Authority has no intention of selling or redeveloping Fish Creek Mobile Home Park. The zoning classification doesn\u2019t change the park\u2019s operation, either, so the Housing Authority is unlikely to pursue re-zoning. Lot rents at the park are priced so the Housing Authority can break even while operating the park, so while lot rent could rise, it\u2019s typically lower than other parks in town. Currently, lot rent ranges from $410 to $475 a month.<\/p>\n
Management at Sleepy Bear had not responded to requests for comment as to whether they\u2019d consider selling or redeveloping the park themselves.<\/p>\n
At Dream Island, Acentia, the owners of the park, have completed about $2 million in renovations and improvements in the last three years, with most of that invested into renovating apartments on the property, Vice President of Asset Management Marko Vukovich wrote in an email to the Pilot.<\/p>\n
Vukovich said the company plans to improve common areas. Lot rents in Dream Island range from $835 to $855, he said. In 2008, the Pilot reported lot rents in the park were $530 a month.<\/p>\n
In 2008, Green Courte Partners, the developers of RiverView, made an offer to purchase Dream Island with the intention of building affordable housing, though those plans were never detailed publicly, and the deal never came to fruition.<\/p>\n
Though lot rent is part of the cost of owning a manufactured home, these homes are still a cheaper option than a traditionally constructed two- or three-bedroom house in Steamboat.<\/p>\n
Peasley said the Housing Authority is interested in manufactured home parks, because it allows for \u201csingle family-ish homeownership scenario\u201d at a lower cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe struggle is finding ground and getting it zoned for that purpose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In 2013, the owners of West Acres pursued a change to the city\u2019s land use plan in order to build a smaller manufactured home park with at least 29 lots near Copper Ridge and Elk River roads. The city didn\u2019t approve the change.<\/p>\n
To make a manufactured home park cost-effective, they must be built on a wide swath of flat land. Peasley pointed out, that for a typical developer, if it\u2019s big enough to do a mobile home park on, it\u2019s big enough to do regular subdivision on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t you do that and sell $800,000 houses? That\u2019s the struggle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bessey said there might be room for smaller parks in current city limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we definitely are supportive of our existing parks. There may be room for new parks. Of course, we have limited land for development,\u201d Bessey said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have any vacant land sitting out there that is zoned (for manufactured homes) right now, but I think we\u2019d be open to considering new parks, depending on the location and what our future land use plan says for that area.<\/p>\n
Right now, there is only one online listing for a manufactured home for sale in mobile home parks located within the city. The four-bedroom manufactured home is on the market for $40,000. It was built in 1964 and is located in Dream Island on the banks of the Yampa River.<\/p>\n
Yards are small, and lot rents seem to be ever increasing, but Steamboat\u2019s remaining manufactured home parks are the only real estate option in the city that offers a four-bedroom, single-family home on the banks of the Yampa River for under $900,000.<\/p>\n
\n
About the series<\/h4>\n
This project is an ambitious, first-of-its-kind collaboration between The Durango Herald, The Colorado Sun and a dozen Colorado news organizations.
\n Journalists across the state focused on the evolving landscape for mobile homes \u2013 our largest source of unsubsidized, affordable housing.
\n Read it at
\n The-Journal.com\/Parked
\n .<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A waterfront home is plowed over for a $31.9 million river walk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,28,1413,29,5469],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-mobile-home","tag-newsletter","tag-parked"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66418"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}