After contentious debate, Mat-Su Assembly bans new traditional mobile home parks

What you need to know:

• The Mat-Su Assembly voted Tuesday to ban new mobile home parks by repealing a longstanding law that provided a path to their approval. The repeal shifts new park proposals under multifamily housing regulations, which classify mobile homes as "substandard dwellings," effectively preventing the development of traditional parks. It does not ban mobile homes installed on permanent foundations.
• The repeal, proposed by Assembly member Rob Yundt, followed a contentious public hearing where the initial reasons for the change were reversed. A memo included with the proposal stated that it was designed to clear the way for more mobile home parks. However, Yundt said the memo was based on a misunderstanding, and he actually intended the repeal to do the opposite.
• The repeal passed by a tie-breaking vote from Mayor Edna DeVries after the Assembly was split 3-3, with concerns raised about the sudden and unclear rationale for the change.

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly voted Tuesday to effectively ban some new mobile home parks in the region by repealing a longstanding law that provided a path to approval for such projects.

The repeal shifts all future proposals for new mobile home parks under a different part of borough code that oversees the permitting process for multifamily housing developments. Under that law, mobile homes are "substandard dwellings," and banned, making new parks ineligible for approval, borough officials said. The change does not ban developments where mobile homes are installed on foundations, they said.

The repeal vote followed a more than hourlong, often chaotic public hearing during which the initial rationale for the proposal was reversed and borough Mayor Edna DeVries rearranged the regular order of the proceedings to clear up what she said was "miscommunication to the public about what this ordinance does."

The repeal was proposed by Assembly member Rob Yundt, whose district includes Wasilla. It was approved by a tie-breaking vote from DeVries after the Assembly split 3-3 on its passage.

The now-repealed mobile home ordinance, first passed in 1983, required developers to meet certain design, setback, and utility standards and obtain a special borough permit after a public hearing. 

Following the repeal, the borough's mobile home laws only block new parks when they are part of a development with three or more on a 40,000-square-foot lot outside the city limits of Palmer, Wasilla, and Houston. They do not apply to currently existing mobile home parks. It also does not apply to future developments of mobile homes placed on foundations.

No information has been provided as to why a change in the borough's mobile home rules is needed now. No new parks have been proposed in Mat-Su for at least 15 years, borough officials said.

The repeal was originally proposed to “increase the availability of this type of housing, making it more accessible to those in need of affordable housing,” according to a memo included with the legislation. The memo was drafted in April and formally presented to the Assembly in May, according to borough documents.

During the meeting Tuesday, Yundt said that adding more mobile homes was not his intent for the repeal. Instead, he intended it to do the exact opposite. He said the memo was created through a "misunderstanding" with borough staff.

“My intention in doing this tonight is to make sure there’ll never be another mobile home park,” he said during the meeting.

Alex Strawn, the borough planning director, said he wrote the memo on Yundt's behalf and sent it to him for approval before the legislation was initially filed for consideration.

"I sent it to Mr. Yundt. He said, 'It looks good,' and I went with it. Where the misunderstanding comes in, I don't know," Strawn said in an interview after the meeting.

Yundt said he takes responsibility for the confusion and did not notice the problem until Monday, when he filed an amendment to change the memo, he said in an interview. He declined to elaborate on what specifically caused the misunderstanding.

"I own this. I don't want anyone to be upset with Alex," he said of Strawn.

"The intent of this ordinance is to make developing a mobile home park impossible," the amended memo states.

Yundt, who co-owns a general contracting company that builds homes and apartments in Mat-Su, said he grew up in a mobile home in Wasilla's Williwaw neighborhood and lived there for 18 years. He has never worked on a mobile home, he said.

"They're not safe," he said. "I've replaced a lot of mobile homes out here with new homes."

Technical details add to confusion

Adding to the confusion at Tuesday's meeting was a clarification from Strawn about the overall impact of repealing the law.

Strawn told the Planning Commission in June that repealing the law would clear the way for more mobile home parks by eliminating the special permit process and instead allowing such proposals to receive multifamily housing permits, which carry less stringent standards.

But that understanding of borough law was incomplete, Strawn told the Assembly Tuesday. A review conducted in his office Monday determined that while he was correct that the proposed parks would newly fall under the multifamily permit rules, he had failed to note that such a shift would make them impossible to develop thanks to a technical definition included in the code.

Mobile homes reviewed under the multifamily rules fall under a borough definition of "substandard housing," which by law cannot receive permits, Strawn said.

Strawn and his team previously missed this technicality because the multifamily ordinance does not specifically list mobile homes by name. Instead, it blocks permits for structures that do not have "footings, pilings, or permanent foundations," a phrase that describes several types of structures including mobile homes, he said. 

Mobile homes installed on foundations will be allowed under the multifamily permit as long as they also meet a series of other standards, including certain septic and plumbing requirements.

The Assembly voted 3-3 to approve the repeal, with "no" votes from members Stephanie Nowers, whose district includes Palmer; Tim Hale, whose district includes Butte; and Dee McKee, whose district includes parts of Palmer and Wasilla. DeVries' tie-breaking vote was necessary because Assembly member Bill Gamble, whose district includes Big Lake, was absent from the meeting.

All Assembly members who attended Tuesday's meeting agreed that new mobile home parks should be banned in the borough. Hale, Nowers, and McKee said they wanted to keep the special permit process in place at least temporarily, in part because it requires a public hearing.

Nowers said relying on a technicality to block traditional mobile home parks while still allowing those installed on foundations is not a true ban. She plans to propose legislation next month that will clearly block all such developments, she said.

“I don't want to rely on some definition in some other permit as the block,” she said during the meeting.

-- Amy Bushatz can be contacted at abushatz@matsusentinel.com.

This story was updated Aug. 8 with additions to Assembly member Stephanie Nower's objections to the repeal and to further clarify that the ban does not apply to mobile homes installed on foundations.