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Committee delays memorial, seeks working group on manufactured-home park problems
Summary
Lawmakers rolled House Memorial (sponsor: Rep. Matthews) and asked state agencies and stakeholders to form a working group to study regulatory gaps affecting manufactured-home (mobile home) communities, including rent increases, utility access and physical infrastructure concerns.
Representative Debra Matthews asked the House Health and Human Services Committee to roll a memorial that would request a state working group to study gaps in oversight of manufactured-home communities until corrected language can be provided.
The memorial is intended to feed into Representative Matthews’ separate bill (bill number referenced in committee materials as 442) and would ask state agencies and stakeholders to recommend statutory changes. Matthews said the manufactured-housing regulatory system ends after construction and installation oversight by the Regulation and Licensing Department (RLD), leaving residents with limited remedies for maintenance, utilities and repeated rent increases.
Matthews said the issue affects about 32,000 New Mexicans living in manufactured-home communities and cited San Juan County as having the highest rate of manufactured housing in the state. She asked that a working group be convened and named Agency Director Bailey (identified in testimony as willing to lead the effort) to take a lead role.
Owners and industry representatives who testified in committee supported a study but urged caution about presuming rent control is the solution. Doug Ottersberg, who described himself as an operator of “mom and pop” manufactured-home communities in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, said the memorial “predetermines rent control is the solution” and warned of unintended consequences that could discourage investment or prompt park closures.
Representatives of the Manufactured Housing Institute and the governor’s Office of Housing said they would participate in a collaborative process. Leslie Gooch (Manufactured Housing Institute) emphasized the need to avoid policy choices that could risk park closures; Daniel Werwath (Governor’s Office of Housing) said his office is “happy to participate.”
The committee agreed to roll the memorial until corrected language is submitted and to pursue the working-group approach rather than immediate legislation, with the sponsor planning to return with a revised memorial.
