4 ms·

As someone who has been living full time in a travel trailer in the past year, I would go even further than pushing for mobile home communities and push for ble

As someone who has been living full time in a travel trailer in the past year, I would go even further than pushing for mobile home communities and push for blended mobile home / tiny house / RV communities. I'm currently in one in Austin and it's a blend of tiny houses, motorhomes, travel trailers, and mini hotels. It's a dynamic inventory of housing. It's a very flexible use of space, and each lot is less than 0.1 acres, but you still have access to common apartment amenities like pool, clubhouse, etc. I could imagine more of allowing property owners to subdivide down to that scale would go far to solve affordability. Quality of construction in travel trailers, tiny houses, and mobile homes has improved compared to what they were 50-60 years ago when the trailer park trope was coined. At any rate, I enjoy the flexibility of being able to hitch up my travel trailer and move locations in no time flat. It's been great during the pandemic to go visit national parks and get outdoors. I just see it as a no brainer. It shouldn't cost a quarter million minimum to lock in a nice location for yourself. You should be able to scoop up a 0.12 acre lot for a few thousand bucks and put a modular or travel trailer on it.

datavirtue 6y ago
All of the most ideal places to do this have already outright banned any mention of it. I have property in an area (township) that is quasi-suburban (country but 30 min from "civilization") but has a zoning code that is so thoroughly constructed and exclusive that it would make your mouth drop. Nevermind putting a trailer on your own property, that ain't happening, you can barely build a house.
Shivetya 6y ago
Zoning pretty much dooms this where I live and many other places. One recent recommendation to allow tiny homes in Atlanta had the caveat, no mobile homes. They wanted housing that could not move. The Atlanta proposal was to permit them on lots that already have a home but not elsewhere. Issues of utilities along with school load come to mind but those occur with any other dense housing. So why wouldn't apartments be better? To make it easier on residents with bad credit and such the utilities could be baked in to the rent and the state or city could offer to subsidize. However what doomed many existing communities near me were property taxes. The land is more valuable for actual homes or in some cases businesses. With tiny/mobile homes as you propose your location may require local governments reducing the tax load to make the location affordable.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  Moving from property tax to land value tax would readily address that last point. This would incentivize turning unused land into tiny/mobile home parks - and would further incentivize residents cooperatively owning that land in order to reduce overhead to a bare minimum.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Cramming more people into a land value taxed plot of land doesn’t address the school funding issue. Taxes exist to provide services. Finding ways to structure housing to minimize local taxes is just squeezing a balloon.
    - francisofascii 6y ago
      Land value taxes help to prevent inflated real estate prices. The purpose is more than just providing services.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        When GP proposes using them to replace property taxes, they need to serve the role that property tax served.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      Are schools underfunded right now? I'm not aware of any such issues in my state.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        a. That depends on who you ask. I think ours are adequately funded as well now. b. My concern over school funding was if you cram more households into a given amount of tax, which was an explicit part of the strategy above, you create a school funding issue that wasn't there before. (I admit I was not explicit about that point and should have used another dozen words to make that clear.)
kodah 6y ago
When I visited my folks out in Texas it was common to find RV and tiny home communities alongside suburban communities (I was in North Texas). Meanwhile, out here in California people have outright banned parking of RVs or have made it so the parks are cast away from "desirable" areas. Especially around the Google campus in Mountain View people are particularly picky. While I understand some of the common criticisms of RVs, I don't think people understand very well that I will probably never earn enough money to buy a California home but I do want a California salary. The delta between my home states compensation for software workers and what the Bay Area pays is extremely beyond cost of living, and lets me make up for years of not being able to save.

datavirtue 6y ago

All of the most ideal places to do this have already outright banned any mention of it. I have property in an area (township) that is quasi-suburban (country but 30 min from "civilization") but has a zoning code that is so thoroughly constructed and exclusive that it would make your mouth drop. Nevermind putting a trailer on your own property, that ain't happening, you can barely build a house.

Shivetya 6y ago

Zoning pretty much dooms this where I live and many other places. One recent recommendation to allow tiny homes in Atlanta had the caveat, no mobile homes. They wanted housing that could not move. The Atlanta proposal was to permit them on lots that already have a home but not elsewhere. Issues of utilities along with school load come to mind but those occur with any other dense housing. So why wouldn't apartments be better? To make it easier on residents with bad credit and such the utilities could be baked in to the rent and the state or city could offer to subsidize. However what doomed many existing communities near me were property taxes. The land is more valuable for actual homes or in some cases businesses. With tiny/mobile homes as you propose your location may require local governments reducing the tax load to make the location affordable.

yellowapple 6y ago
Moving from property tax to land value tax would readily address that last point. This would incentivize turning unused land into tiny/mobile home parks - and would further incentivize residents cooperatively owning that land in order to reduce overhead to a bare minimum.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Cramming more people into a land value taxed plot of land doesn’t address the school funding issue. Taxes exist to provide services. Finding ways to structure housing to minimize local taxes is just squeezing a balloon.
  - francisofascii 6y ago
    Land value taxes help to prevent inflated real estate prices. The purpose is more than just providing services.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      When GP proposes using them to replace property taxes, they need to serve the role that property tax served.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    Are schools underfunded right now? I'm not aware of any such issues in my state.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      a. That depends on who you ask. I think ours are adequately funded as well now. b. My concern over school funding was if you cram more households into a given amount of tax, which was an explicit part of the strategy above, you create a school funding issue that wasn't there before. (I admit I was not explicit about that point and should have used another dozen words to make that clear.)

kodah 6y ago

When I visited my folks out in Texas it was common to find RV and tiny home communities alongside suburban communities (I was in North Texas). Meanwhile, out here in California people have outright banned parking of RVs or have made it so the parks are cast away from "desirable" areas. Especially around the Google campus in Mountain View people are particularly picky. While I understand some of the common criticisms of RVs, I don't think people understand very well that I will probably never earn enough money to buy a California home but I do want a California salary. The delta between my home states compensation for software workers and what the Bay Area pays is extremely beyond cost of living, and lets me make up for years of not being able to save.