Homeowners desperate for protection

Manufactured housing residents pushing for rent, buyout proposalsBy J.L. MILLER, The News Journal
Posted Monday, October 15, 2007Read Comments-->
Rep. Robert J. Valihura Jr. says two bills backed by owners of manufactured homes will get hearings, and he wants to forge a compromise. 10/15/2007 -->
Rep. Robert J. Valihura Jr. calls it the most intense lobbying effort he's ever seen in his nine years as a legislator.
Anthony Miller calls it a simple issue of fairness.
The continuing fight by residents of Delaware's manufactured-home communities for legislative protection has escalated, even though the General Assembly is in recess until January.
It has roiled relations among House Republicans, and prompted a threat by the House speaker to step down if bills to protect the homeowners aren't brought to the floor for a vote.
And it has left folks such as Miller, who lives in the Wild Meadows community east of Dover Downs, wondering what the outcome will be.
At the heart of the debate are two pieces of legislation: House Bill 258, to set guidelines for rent increases in manufactured-home communities, and Senate Bill 122, to give residents the right to match any offer to purchase their community.
Both bills are in the House Subcommittee on Manufactured Housing, chaired by Valihura, R-Talleyville.
S.B. 122 sailed through the Senate June 27, three days before the session ended. H.B. 258 was introduced June 27.
Despite a major lobbying effort by the Delaware Manufactured Home Owners Association to bring the bills to the floor for a vote, both remain in committee.
"The bills came over too late in the session to have any meaningful debate and hearing, and it was always my intention to have a public hearing," Valihura said.
On Sept. 24, House Speaker Terry Spence, R-Stratford, attended a homeowners association's meeting in Oak Orchard, where resident after resident told him that spiraling lot rents were threatening to drive them out of their homes.
He pledged to leave his speaker's post if the bills are not heard, or possibly to use his power to reassign the bills to a committee that would act on them.
Valihura says he is stuck in the middle. He says he had been working before the June 30 recess to help the landlords and the homeowners reach a compromise.
"Unfortunately, the [Senate] bill was was introduced, it was run through the Senate and it was trying to be jammed down the throats of my colleagues," Valihura said. "This was supposed to be worked out before the legislation reached the floor."
Valihura complains that he has been painted as being on the side of the landowners, who are opposed to both measures but say they want to help forge a compromise.
"I have assiduously courted both sides to try to bring an understanding that change needs to happen, but it needs to happen such that all sides are invested in it," Valihura said.
Ed Speraw, president of the homeowners association, sees it differently. He believes Valihura will do what he can to torpedo the bills, but that the votes are there to pass them if they reach the House floor.
"Should I be scared? I don't know," Speraw said.
Wild Meadows resident Miller, meanwhile, wonders how it will all play out.
He said his community has been spared the major rent increases of some of the communities in Sussex, where some rates have doubled in just a few years. Yearly lot rents at Wild Meadows have gone up about 6 percent.
But Miller takes little comfort in the fact that Valihura has scheduled hearings this month on the bills.
"He always holds hearings," Miller said. "There were times in the past we thought we were on the verge of making some progress ... and nothing ever happens.
"I find it unconscionable that our legislators can hear what is happening to people and still don't do anything," he said.
Fred Neil, public affairs officer for the homeowners association, said the bills are needed to reform a system that permits landlords to raise rents once a year and places no limits on how high rents can go.
"We're indentured homeowners. The system is absolutely feudal," said Neil, who also lives in Wild Meadows.
"At the point at which you sign the contract and become a homeowner ... you become locked in. There are no competitive factors that could hold the price down of your rent," Neil said.
Neil said the lobbying effort at the end of the legislative session included an open letter to the state Republican Party, seeking the party's help in forcing action on the bills.
Although that failed, supporters remain hopeful.
"Bob Valihura is a good person, a fair person," said Bill Reed, vice president of the homeowners association. "But the hearings mean nothing. They still have to debate it in the House."
Valihura said he remains committed to helping broker a compromise -- but he warned that neither side will be able "to cram something through the building. It's not going to happen."Contact J.L. Miller at 678-4271 or jlmiller@delawareonline.com.