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Work group considers zoning and legal changes to expand manufactured-home ownership options
Summary
A request to study zoning and statutory changes to expand fee-simple ownership and residential placement of modern manufactured homes drew support from housing advocates and industry representatives at a Virginia Housing Commission work group meeting.
Delegate Elizabeth Guzman Maldonado (referred to in the transcript as Delegate Maldonado) asked the work group to study whether changes to zoning and subdivision law could help manufactured-home owners obtain the benefits of fee-simple ownership and reduce barriers that leave many manufactured-home units titled as personal property.
"When you're not a real estate owner, you are left out of a number of resources, benefits, and opportunities," Delegate Elizabeth Maldonado said, summarizing the policy problem: many manufactured homes are titled as chattel, which limits borrowers to higher-cost personal loans rather than mortgages and can exclude owners from mortgage relief programs and other benefits that attach to real property.
Christie Marrow of the Virginia Poverty Law Center and Randy Grumbine of the Virginia Manufactured and Modular Housing Association both testified. Marrow said manufactured homes are a comparatively affordable path to homeownership and that state policy should not exclude that population from protections and incentives. Grumbine said his industry supports fee-simple ownership options but cautioned that retaining the ability to use personal-property loans and the manufactured-home product’s transportability remains important for some purchasers.
Advocates suggested statutory approaches used elsewhere, including language that would require localities to allow HUD-code manufactured homes in residential land-use districts when the unit meets building-code equivalency standards, and incentive options such as enabling smaller minimum lot sizes for manufactured-home subdivisions. Randy Grumbine also emphasized the need for continuing consumer education about modern manufactured housing and noted that today’s HUD-code homes meet stronger construction and energy-efficiency standards than earlier models.
Work group members asked staff to review a Florida statute that declares HUD-code or state-certified manufactured homes meeting structural standards are allowed in all residential districts, and Delegate Maldonado said the request is intended to be permissive and incentive-based rather than mandatory or retroactive for existing parks.
Ending: Members asked staff to draft comparative language and to circulate the Florida example for review. No formal action or vote was taken at the meeting.
