Mobile Home Parks and American Municipalities

Increasingly, mobile home parks are becoming more important. However, exclusionary practices frustrate development of mobile home parks. To provide municipalities with the necessary zoning regulations and taxation safeguards, there is a need to examine specifically the problems and opportunities. One problem is the lack of mobile home park sites. This is due to the widespread fear of many municipal officials that mobile home parks will mean an increase in transients, undesirable newcomers and structures, and additional public school and other governmental costs. There is substantial evidence that current mobile home parks contain nonmigratory, respectable residents, often without public school children. Tax systems and regulation methods are available for adequate municipal protection. For example, equitable assessment methods are available to compare tax versus costs of mobile home parks and residential subdivision. Similarly, zoning tools are available to provide for this increasingly popular form of housing. These deal with such items as density, parking, landscaping and auxiliary facilities.