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There are broad swaths of non-rural residential spaces which are zoned to excluded most mobile homes. These facts are part of what is driving the popularity of

There are broad swaths of non-rural residential spaces which are zoned to excluded most mobile homes. These facts are part of what is driving the popularity of "Tiny Houses on Wheels".

hollywood_court 4y ago
Whenever my wife and I buy a piece of land, we always make sure to be certain that no mobile homes will be allowed anywhere near the borders.
- evandwight 4y ago
  Why?
  - gardenfelder 4y ago
    One version I've heard is the concern that land value will decline if neighboring property turns into a kind of holding grounds for run-down, ill-maintained old trailers. It does seem like our vernacular in this space is ripe for change; perhaps "homes on wheels" is teasing open that door...
  - hollywood_court 4y ago
    After living in a mobile home park for most of my childhood, I don’t want those kind of neighbors. The folks that think it’s wise to spend $70k+ on a trailer are often the same folks who think it’s ok to have multiple broken down cars in the yard and/or multiple unfixed and unrestrained dogs running around and/or the worst of all: people who don’t see the irony of waving a Gadsden flag right next to their thin blue line flag.
    - Avicebron 4y ago
      I can confirm, just down the street there are two mobile homes. (Within less than a few minutes walking distance, before they were evicted, one of these homes had several instances of domestic violence, repeated calls to the animal control who on entering the house found several dogs days into starvation eating their own feces from hunger (they also would growl and bark at anyone attempting to walk or bike down the road). They were close enough that every so often we could hear the angry yelling for hours on end as the woman and her partner(s?) would fight. The other one, while quieter has approximately 3 unused vehicles, assorted junk, and lots of other good stuff dangerously close to spilling on to the neighbor territory, I'm living in a very rural state and can assure you this is the norm
      - hollywood_court 4y ago
        I’m well aware that it’s the norm unfortunately. You could have just described any of my mothers numerous neighbors.
      - dghlsakjg 4y ago
        Your objection to the second neighbor is that he he has lots of his stuff inside the limits of his property?
        Avicebron 4y ago
        Behaviors like this generally lowers property values, it's the reason most (all?) HOAs have rules against this among other things.
        dghlsakjg 4y ago
        It’s a trade off. One of the benefits of living in a rural area/area without HOA is that you can do many things that you wouldn’t be allowed to elsewhere. One of the dangers is that your neighbors can do the same. Is there any data/studies that proves that derelict properties actually drag down adjacent property values? My own anecdata and property valuation suggest otherwise, but I hear the property value line often enough that I would like to know if it’s true.
        bombcar 4y ago
        It does if it changes the character of the neighborhood which is a pretty tall bar to cross. So if you are in a little subdivision and suddenly a yard sprouts cars and weeds, you may find your property prices affected. But if half the properties are like that (or big enough you can’t see one from the next) probably won’t affect anything except that property itself.
        themitigating 4y ago
        If it reduces property values then it effects others
    - moistly 4y ago
      Let’s be honest: it varies widely. There are parks with age restrictions: they tend to be okay. There are parks that do enforce their bylaws, including visual appearances, and they’re pretty good. A well-managed small park of newer double-wides and larger pads can be a nice place to live. As with all housing, there are good neighbourhoods and bad. Hell, my in-law is in a nice millionaires neighbourhood and his immediate next-door neighbour is a swinging cokehead wife abuser who throws ragers every few months. It’s hell, but the properties are all freehold: short of a lawsuit, ain’t nothing to be done.
      - hollywood_court 4y ago
        I shouldn't have specified "mobile home parks." In my personal experience, the people who buy plots of land and move mobile homes in are often worse than anything you'll find in a mobile home park. The park I grew up in had some rules and regulations, but everything goes whenever you buy a plot of land out in the county.
        moistly 4y ago
        Ah, yes, the infamous small acreage with an old, failing mobile home. I grew up in the wilds. Many of the people were not living in town for good reason. It was not an environment packed with high-functioning people. A lot of abusive families. A lot of hard-scrabble survival.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    My family bought one of the very first lots in a new lake front property development way back in the 60s. After a very slow sale of these other lots in the development, the developer halved the size of the lots and opened them for mobile homes. The lots sold, the mobile homes moved in, and my family's property valued plummeted. There were more than a few neighbors that fit the very stereotype you imagine, and they were the ones that lived there full time. Most of the direct neighbors were just weekenders (as were we).
    - hollywood_court 4y ago
      That sounds like Lake Martin in Alabama.
    - pasquinelli 4y ago
      sounds like a good outcome to me. more affordable housing and all it costs is a drop in the resale value of vacation homes, (that also comes with a drop in property taxes for those same vacation homes.)
      - xani_ 4y ago
        Well, unless you're a sucker that saved whole life to buy that home and now half the value is worse and neighbourhood is shit... But maybe we shouldn't let private companies decide on things like land usage in the first place...
        ReactiveJelly 4y ago
        Who has the right to live and move where is a problem older than humanity
        colinsane 4y ago
        older than humanity? i guess in the sense that we aren’t the only animals to enforce territory. on the other hand we probably are the only animals to have conceived of “rights”.
  - banannaise 4y ago
    Because in the extremely broken system we're living under, poor neighbors decrease land value.
- chrisco255 4y ago
  Whenever I buy a piece of land, I make certain there are as few restrictions on the use of that land and that no NIMBYs or HOA types are anywhere near the borders.
  - hollywood_court 4y ago
    I don't blame you. HOAs are the worst. I've never owned property with an HOA.
    - chrisco255 4y ago
      Then how do you ensure mobile homes are not allowed anywhere near you? Overly restrictive zoning areas? At any rate, many of my own family members have lived in trailers or currently do, and I'm rather disgusted by your comment above.
      - hollywood_court 4y ago
        All of the land we’ve bought has included clauses from the sellers that require that no mobile homes are allowed to be visible from the road. It’s the community working together to keep things pleasant. I grew up in a mobile home so I know firsthand what I’m trying to avoid. I’m not responsible for your emotions. But if me sharing my opinion about living near a mobile home truly does disgust you, perhaps you’ve had enough internet for the day. You shouldn’t allow me to have that kind of power over your mind. I’m just a stranger after all.
        imtringued 4y ago
        >You shouldn’t allow me to have that kind of power over your mind. I’m just a stranger after all. You are actively seeking out legislation that imposes this "power over your mind".
        tomcam 4y ago
        You appear to be mind-reading. Deed restrictions and covenants aren’t legislation
linguae 4y ago
Exactly. In California every county I've researched thus far prohibits living in a home on your own land that's not on a permanent foundation, unless there is a home under construction on that lot and the mobile home is merely temporary housing (if any of you know of any counties in California that don't prohibit this, please let me know). I've even looked at counties quite far from the populated metro areas, and I've encountered the same restrictions while reading their zoning laws. Even the jurisdictions that have allowed "tiny homes" typically only allow those on a permanent foundation and must be registered as ADUs (accessory dwelling units) and not as main properties on the lot. I live in an apartment near Silicon Valley and would love to have a house with a garage for hobbies, but buying a house anywhere near the area in a safe location is prohibitively expensive for me; I'd have to go either deep in the Central Valley (think Fresno County and beyond), the Sierra Foothills, or the Mojave Desert to find affordable places.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Since you seem to have researched this, how does "permanent foundation" interface with the structure on top of it, legally? I.e. what does zoning say if you pour a concrete slab, drop a mobile home on it, and then bolt the home down (for some definition of bolt)?
  - linguae 4y ago
    I'm not an expert on building codes, but here are my assumptions based on what I've read thus far regarding zoning for residential properties: 1. The structure built on top of the permanent foundation must comply with the building codes of the municipality that the permanent foundation is located in. This requires obtaining permit(s) before bolting the structure onto the foundation. 2. The municipal planning department will have some definition for what would be a legally permissible foundation and what constitutes "bolting down." There are many companies that specialize in the building of mobile and manufactured homes that are compliant with state- and local-level building codes. But it's very important that people do their proverbial homework, making sure that the mobile/manufactured home does truly comply with the regulations of the intended permanent location.

There are broad swaths of non-rural residential spaces which are zoned to excluded most mobile homes. These facts are part of what is driving the popularity of "Tiny Houses on Wheels".

hollywood_court 4y ago

Whenever my wife and I buy a piece of land, we always make sure to be certain that no mobile homes will be allowed anywhere near the borders.

evandwight 4y ago
Why?
- gardenfelder 4y ago
  One version I've heard is the concern that land value will decline if neighboring property turns into a kind of holding grounds for run-down, ill-maintained old trailers. It does seem like our vernacular in this space is ripe for change; perhaps "homes on wheels" is teasing open that door...
- hollywood_court 4y ago
  After living in a mobile home park for most of my childhood, I don’t want those kind of neighbors. The folks that think it’s wise to spend $70k+ on a trailer are often the same folks who think it’s ok to have multiple broken down cars in the yard and/or multiple unfixed and unrestrained dogs running around and/or the worst of all: people who don’t see the irony of waving a Gadsden flag right next to their thin blue line flag.
  - Avicebron 4y ago
    I can confirm, just down the street there are two mobile homes. (Within less than a few minutes walking distance, before they were evicted, one of these homes had several instances of domestic violence, repeated calls to the animal control who on entering the house found several dogs days into starvation eating their own feces from hunger (they also would growl and bark at anyone attempting to walk or bike down the road). They were close enough that every so often we could hear the angry yelling for hours on end as the woman and her partner(s?) would fight. The other one, while quieter has approximately 3 unused vehicles, assorted junk, and lots of other good stuff dangerously close to spilling on to the neighbor territory, I'm living in a very rural state and can assure you this is the norm
    - hollywood_court 4y ago
      I’m well aware that it’s the norm unfortunately. You could have just described any of my mothers numerous neighbors.
    - dghlsakjg 4y ago
      Your objection to the second neighbor is that he he has lots of his stuff inside the limits of his property?
      - Avicebron 4y ago
        Behaviors like this generally lowers property values, it's the reason most (all?) HOAs have rules against this among other things.
        dghlsakjg 4y ago
        It’s a trade off. One of the benefits of living in a rural area/area without HOA is that you can do many things that you wouldn’t be allowed to elsewhere. One of the dangers is that your neighbors can do the same. Is there any data/studies that proves that derelict properties actually drag down adjacent property values? My own anecdata and property valuation suggest otherwise, but I hear the property value line often enough that I would like to know if it’s true.
        bombcar 4y ago
        It does if it changes the character of the neighborhood which is a pretty tall bar to cross. So if you are in a little subdivision and suddenly a yard sprouts cars and weeds, you may find your property prices affected. But if half the properties are like that (or big enough you can’t see one from the next) probably won’t affect anything except that property itself.
      - themitigating 4y ago
        If it reduces property values then it effects others
  - moistly 4y ago
    Let’s be honest: it varies widely. There are parks with age restrictions: they tend to be okay. There are parks that do enforce their bylaws, including visual appearances, and they’re pretty good. A well-managed small park of newer double-wides and larger pads can be a nice place to live. As with all housing, there are good neighbourhoods and bad. Hell, my in-law is in a nice millionaires neighbourhood and his immediate next-door neighbour is a swinging cokehead wife abuser who throws ragers every few months. It’s hell, but the properties are all freehold: short of a lawsuit, ain’t nothing to be done.
    - hollywood_court 4y ago
      I shouldn't have specified "mobile home parks." In my personal experience, the people who buy plots of land and move mobile homes in are often worse than anything you'll find in a mobile home park. The park I grew up in had some rules and regulations, but everything goes whenever you buy a plot of land out in the county.
      - moistly 4y ago
        Ah, yes, the infamous small acreage with an old, failing mobile home. I grew up in the wilds. Many of the people were not living in town for good reason. It was not an environment packed with high-functioning people. A lot of abusive families. A lot of hard-scrabble survival.
- dylan604 4y ago
  My family bought one of the very first lots in a new lake front property development way back in the 60s. After a very slow sale of these other lots in the development, the developer halved the size of the lots and opened them for mobile homes. The lots sold, the mobile homes moved in, and my family's property valued plummeted. There were more than a few neighbors that fit the very stereotype you imagine, and they were the ones that lived there full time. Most of the direct neighbors were just weekenders (as were we).
  - hollywood_court 4y ago
    That sounds like Lake Martin in Alabama.
  - pasquinelli 4y ago
    sounds like a good outcome to me. more affordable housing and all it costs is a drop in the resale value of vacation homes, (that also comes with a drop in property taxes for those same vacation homes.)
    - xani_ 4y ago
      Well, unless you're a sucker that saved whole life to buy that home and now half the value is worse and neighbourhood is shit... But maybe we shouldn't let private companies decide on things like land usage in the first place...
      - ReactiveJelly 4y ago
        Who has the right to live and move where is a problem older than humanity
        colinsane 4y ago
        older than humanity? i guess in the sense that we aren’t the only animals to enforce territory. on the other hand we probably are the only animals to have conceived of “rights”.
- banannaise 4y ago
  Because in the extremely broken system we're living under, poor neighbors decrease land value.
chrisco255 4y ago
Whenever I buy a piece of land, I make certain there are as few restrictions on the use of that land and that no NIMBYs or HOA types are anywhere near the borders.
- hollywood_court 4y ago
  I don't blame you. HOAs are the worst. I've never owned property with an HOA.
  - chrisco255 4y ago
    Then how do you ensure mobile homes are not allowed anywhere near you? Overly restrictive zoning areas? At any rate, many of my own family members have lived in trailers or currently do, and I'm rather disgusted by your comment above.
    - hollywood_court 4y ago
      All of the land we’ve bought has included clauses from the sellers that require that no mobile homes are allowed to be visible from the road. It’s the community working together to keep things pleasant. I grew up in a mobile home so I know firsthand what I’m trying to avoid. I’m not responsible for your emotions. But if me sharing my opinion about living near a mobile home truly does disgust you, perhaps you’ve had enough internet for the day. You shouldn’t allow me to have that kind of power over your mind. I’m just a stranger after all.
      - imtringued 4y ago
        >You shouldn’t allow me to have that kind of power over your mind. I’m just a stranger after all. You are actively seeking out legislation that imposes this "power over your mind".
        tomcam 4y ago
        You appear to be mind-reading. Deed restrictions and covenants aren’t legislation

linguae 4y ago

Exactly. In California every county I've researched thus far prohibits living in a home on your own land that's not on a permanent foundation, unless there is a home under construction on that lot and the mobile home is merely temporary housing (if any of you know of any counties in California that don't prohibit this, please let me know). I've even looked at counties quite far from the populated metro areas, and I've encountered the same restrictions while reading their zoning laws. Even the jurisdictions that have allowed "tiny homes" typically only allow those on a permanent foundation and must be registered as ADUs (accessory dwelling units) and not as main properties on the lot. I live in an apartment near Silicon Valley and would love to have a house with a garage for hobbies, but buying a house anywhere near the area in a safe location is prohibitively expensive for me; I'd have to go either deep in the Central Valley (think Fresno County and beyond), the Sierra Foothills, or the Mojave Desert to find affordable places.

ethbr0 4y ago
Since you seem to have researched this, how does "permanent foundation" interface with the structure on top of it, legally? I.e. what does zoning say if you pour a concrete slab, drop a mobile home on it, and then bolt the home down (for some definition of bolt)?
- linguae 4y ago
  I'm not an expert on building codes, but here are my assumptions based on what I've read thus far regarding zoning for residential properties: 1. The structure built on top of the permanent foundation must comply with the building codes of the municipality that the permanent foundation is located in. This requires obtaining permit(s) before bolting the structure onto the foundation. 2. The municipal planning department will have some definition for what would be a legally permissible foundation and what constitutes "bolting down." There are many companies that specialize in the building of mobile and manufactured homes that are compliant with state- and local-level building codes. But it's very important that people do their proverbial homework, making sure that the mobile/manufactured home does truly comply with the regulations of the intended permanent location.