One of the aspects that have kept South King County more affordable compared to other parts of King County is its diversity of housing types. One form of housing we see in South King County that you might not see in other parts of the county are mobile home parks. Mobile homes are a form of naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH) and have historically been vulnerable to displacement. 

The City of Kent, one of the South King Housing and Homelessness Partners (SKHHP) member jurisdictions, has been leading in this policy work even before Engrossed Second Substitute Senate Bill 5198 or House Bill 1771 was adopted by the state legislature earlier this year. The City of Kent has exceeded this requirement by mandating that the owner of a mobile home park create a relocation report and plan that must be submitted to and approved by the City before the owner can issue any eviction notices under RCW 59.21. The City has utilized a Director’s Rule to update the deadlines for relocation plans to align with new closure and conversion timelines established in Senate Bill 5198. The City can also require the mobile home park owner to designate a relocation coordinator to administer the provisions of the relocation report and plan and work with the mobile home park tenants, the housing and human services office, and other city and state offices to ensure compliance with the relocation report and plan and with state laws governing mobile home park relocation assistance, eviction notification, and landlord/tenant responsibilities.

While only used a couple of times in the City of Kent, the program demonstrated that good policy could lessen the impacts of displacement. Kent has studied mobile home parks through the Kent Housing Options Plan (KHOP). The Plan includes an inventory of mobile home parks and classification based on a rating scale for safety ranging from "highest level of concern,” “improvement efforts needed,” or “well maintained.” The plan calls for a nuanced and compassionate approach for preservation and code enforcement for safety standards. For the City of Kent, a successful anti-displacement and affordable housing preservation strategy should account for the variety of conditions and management structures when evaluating ways to support mobile home residents. More information can be found in the KHOP on pages 64-66 and Appendix I.

Engrossed Second Substitute Senate Bill 5198 increased the notice of sale or conversion from one to two years, and requires the property owner to notify each tenant. The legislation includes some options for sellers to sell before two years by requiring relocation support.  House Bill 1771 updates the mechanisms the state has in place to provide relocation assistance to displaced mobile park residents. The bill allows residents being compensated for the loss of their homes to still apply for state assistance programs if they need the support. Both bills became effective last week.

In 2022, the Washington State Department of Commerce awarded grants to 26 central Puget Sound municipalities (in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties), including to several SKHHP partner cities, to study policy and regulation changes that would allow middle housing types on at least 30% of existing single family-zoned lots in their communities. The grant program was initiated in 2022, which preceded the 2023 passage of HB 1110, and at that time sought to encourage local jurisdictions to consider middle housing.  Jurisdictions completed this grant work June 30, 2023.

Middle housing is a term for homes that are at a middle scale between detached single-family houses and large multifamily development. Middle housing examples include duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, fiveplexes, sixplexes, courtyard apartments, cottage clusters, and townhomes.

During the time of the grant, the Department of Commerce worked with Opticos Design Inc. to produce an informational middle housing toolkit.  This middle housing toolkit provides a variety of resources that local jurisdictions may use to broaden the public’s understanding of middle housing. This includes a middle housing photo library, slide decks and videos.  The toolkit also includes an interactive pro-forma tool that can be used to analyze the relationship between development costs and possible costs to a future resident for different middle housing types.

The consultant’s work on the pro-forma toolkit found, based on a Puget Sound housing market analysis, that middle housing types had different impacts and levels of accessibility based on income. For example, a teacher making $74,000 per year would have a cost burden of 159% if they owned a detached home, but their cost burden would be reduced to 73% if they owned a unit in a duplex and 31% if they owned a unit in a fourplex.

To learn more about middle housing visit the Department of Commerce website.