A mobile home community with 17 pads in Port Moody has been sold to a developer.
Nicola Wealth Management Ltd., a Vancouver-based real estate management company, said in a statement it acquired the 1.7-acre property at 3370 Dewdney Trunk Rd. in partnership with Vancouver developer PC Urban Properties Co. They plan to build a rental apartment building with approximately 235 units.
The site is a short walk from the Inlet Centre SkyTrain station and is designated for multi-family residential development in Port Moody’s official community plan, according to the sales brochure produced by realtor Colliers International.
But Al Kemp, the executive director of the Manufactured Home Park Owners’ Association, said the sale and planned redevelopment of the property represents another loss in the Lower Mainland for an increasingly endangered option of affordable home ownership.
“In some of the urban areas, there are some parks that have been sold for redevelopment,” said Kemp, who represents about 375 mobile home park owners in British Columbia. “The economics become obvious.”
Kemp said while the price of owning a detached single-family home in the Lower Mainland is now more than $1 million, a brand new 1,500 sq. ft. manufactured home with two bathrooms and modern appliances and fixtures can still be purchased and placed in a park for $250-300,000.
More importantly, said Kemp, many of the parks have become communities where residents take root for a decade or more.
“If you’re in a condo, you might know the person next door or across the hall,” Kemp said. “But in a lot of manufactured home communities they have an annual garage sale, barbecues, it’s a whole different sense of home.”
Kemp said as urban communities face pressure to build more density to create affordable housing, the owners of mobile home parks are in an uphill battle for survival.
“Cities look askance at manufactured home communities,” Kemp said. “It’s one of our challenges to convince them this is a niche of affordable housing, but it doesn’t get looked at that way.”
Under provincial legislation enacted in 2002, park owners who intend to redevelop must provide residents 12 months notice and compensation of 12 months rent for their pad space.
Kemp said relocating a manufactured home isn’t easy, as the vacancy rate at existing parks in the province is about half of one pad.
