On February 7, 2024

What’s a mobile home park? 

A Vermont House bill could change the definition

By Brooke Burns, Community News Service

Editor’s note: The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.

Only a third of Vermont’s 20,000 occupied mobile homes qualify for the state’s mobile home park registry, a list often included in criteria for home improvement loans and grants. A House bill introduced last month seeks to include more of those homes, and homeowners, in the list — and give them more financial opportunities.

The bill, H.618, aims to expand the legal definition of mobile home parks to include communities of mobile homeowners who own their own lots. Currently, state law defines mobile home parks as land with at least two mobile homes or mobile home lots, or adjacent land, owned by the same person, according to the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD), which runs the registry.

Only mobile homes that meet the statutory definition can be on the registry. 

The bill aims to expand the legal 
definition of mobile home parks
to include communities of mobile 
homeowners who own their own lots. 
Currently, state law defines mobile home 
parks asland with at least two mobile 
homes or mobile home lots, or 
adjacent land owned by the same person.

The bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Angela Arsenault, D-Williston, said in a Jan. 12 House Committee on General and Housing meeting that she began looking into the issue when constituents reached out. Some residents of Williston Woods, a 55-years-and-over community made up of mobile homes, couldn’t access infrastructure grants because their properties didn’t meet the Vermont definition of mobile home park. 

Some of the community’s lots are owned individually, with the rest controlled by a co-op. Only the co-op properties were considered part of a mobile home park legally, so the individual owners weren’t eligible for the repairs grant. 

Arsenault and co-sponsor Rep. Curt Taylor, D-Colchester, chair of Vermont’s mobile home task force, decided to visit the community. They found no visible difference between the two sections and felt they should both be eligible for the funding. 

“The folks who were left out of these opportunities are squarely within the group of people I believe these assistance programs want to help, want to cover,” said Arsenault in committee. “Williston Woods is a HUD [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development]-recognized senior living community with income restrictions, and it is just right in that demographic of folks who really should be qualifying for the various assistance programs.”

Taylor said in an interview the proposed changes would give people who own just one mobile home more access to loans and grants. 

 


Submitted
A Vermont House bill aims to expand the definition of mobile homes to qualify for aid. 

“Most mobile home parks have infrastructure difficulties that they need to address like wastewater and drinking water and things like that,” Taylor said. “They could use state help or help from other organizations that sometimes say, ‘If you’re not in the registry, we don’t offer you a loan or grant’.”

The registry itself is merely data and not meant to be used to determine a community’s eligibility for grants and funding, according to Arthur Hamlin, the ACCD’s mobile home parks housing program coordinator.

“It’s informational. It’s not a license or a permit of any kind,” said Hamlin. “But we’re required by the state park law to have all the park owners register their parks with us in September each year and keep a registry database of the parks and periodically publish information, reports or park listings on our website.”

The bill is not the only recent attention mobile homes have received from the Legislature. This past summer, legislators in the House set up the task force Taylor now chairs. The goal was to address and produce a report about the ever-changing issues mobile homeowners face in Vermont.

“It was kind of to get as much information as possible together and understand how motorhomes work in Vermont, what their status is and how many there are, how many are in parks, what their needs are, what data is available on them,” Taylor said.

When catastrophic floods hit the state last summer, the task force was forced to pivot and consider flood resiliency plans, such as repairing culverts and levees, creating buffer zones with vegetation or looking at how flood-prone land is zoned. Members are working on a report to put out their findings.

“We’re now writing up the report like crazy and hope to have it out in a couple of weeks,” said Taylor.

If H.618 is passed, it will go into effect July 1. Arsenault acknowledges the minute details being changed in the definition but emphasized the impact it could have on her constituents.  

“I’ve been mistakenly saying it’s a really little bill (when it) could have a really substantial and wonderful impact for members of my community,” she said.

Do you want to submit feedback to the editor?

Send Us An Email!

Related Posts

Off on the wrong foot

February 5, 2025
At the beginning of the session last month, one of the first daily riddles I shared in our committee was a simple question, “Why is it good to balance on your left foot on New Year’s Eve? Because that way you can start off the new year on the right foot.” Unfortunately, that didn’t happen…

Property tax relief

February 5, 2025
“I can’t afford to live here” and “It’s not worth it” is what I often hear when talking about property taxes. It is one of the main reasons I ran for office — to find a better, more sustainable way to pay for public education. The bulk of most property tax bills is the statewide…

Legislators get first look at proposed funding for governor’s proposed ‘education transformation’

February 5, 2025
By Polly Mikula Since first announcing what they’ve coined the “education transformation” plan on Jan. 22. Governor Phil Scott and his top education officials have gradually unveiled more and more details.  Democratic lawmakers have mostly welcomed Republican Gov. Phil Scott’s grand proposal with cautious optimism. Yet while broad support for a new funding formula and…

Vt legislators introduce bi-partisan bill to phase out tax on Social Security benefits

January 29, 2025
Vermont legislators are calling for support on a bill that seeks to exempt Social Security benefits from state income tax, a move aimed at easing financial burdens for retirees while aligning Vermont with most other states. This proposed legislation, H.74, has over 60 co-sponsors from across all parties and from all corners of the state.  Currently, Vermont is one of…