Manufactured home debate not over

House subcommittee hears both sides in issue over land rights
By J.L. MILLER, The News Journal

Posted Saturday, February 23, 2008
DOVER -- Manufactured-home owners and their landlords will return to the table next week after failing to reach an agreement Friday on legislation to give residents the first shot at buying their communities if they come up for sale.

Although both sides have found common ground, they differ on one fundamental issue: how to protect residents' interests without infringing on the landowners' property rights.

"I know from experience, the minute you start restricting my freedom in how I sell property, I know it degrades the value of my property," Jerome Heisler, representing the landlords, told the residents' negotiators.

Community Legal Aid Society attorney Christopher White, representing the residents, replied that many residents have made significant investments in their homes -- and those investments should be protected, even though the homes sit on rented land.

The negotiations are being mediated by the House Subcommittee on Manufactured Housing, headed by Rep. Robert J. Valihura Jr., R-Beau Tree.

Despite the lack of a breakthrough in Friday's meeting, which lasted more than three hours, Valihura was pleased with the progress. "I'm very encouraged by the open dialogue we had today," Valihura said.

"We're very, very early in the [legislative] session," he said, adding that he fully expects a compromise to be reached and a bill come to the committee for a vote.

That would clear the way for the panel to take up an even more contentious issue: legislation to require landlords to justify rent increases if they exceed the rate of inflation in the Consumer Price Index. Landowners vehemently oppose that idea.

The bill to give homeowners the first shot at buying their communities is a matter of some urgency, at least for the residents and their organization, the Delaware Manufactured Homeowners Association.

At least three manufactured-home communities in Sussex County reportedly are changing hands, and property owners say they frequently receive unsolicited offers to buy their land.

The homeowners' association has been working with the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, which has arranged financing for homeowners to buy communities in that state. The fund could help arrange financing for homeowners here.

The current discussions center on a rewrite of Senate Bill 122, which would give residents the right to buy their community by matching an offer from a potential buyer.

But the devil is in the details.

The two sides sparred Friday over provisions governing the sale of a community at auction, as well as a number of measures designed to keep landowners from subverting the process to sell to an outside buyer.

It is those details, Heisler and other landowners said, that could have the unintended effect of encouraging community owners to close them and sell the land for shopping malls or other commercial use.

"You make the process such a high threshold, I'm going to take the easy way out," Heisler said.

Although both sides agreed to return to the table next week, Fred Neil, spokesman for the homeowners, said an agreement seems a long way off.

"We're not even close," he said.