The Town should make sure it doesn’t overstep its bounds as it decides whether to create a mobile home advisory board, as requested by residents at the Heritage Estates mobile home park in Okotoks.
Residents are unhappy over the high cost of pad rentals, maintenance problems and what they feel is a general lack of concern about residents from park owner Lansdowne Equity Ventures. Lansdowne opposes the move, saying rental rates are based on market costs and it works to address residents’ concerns.
The Town is now being put in the middle as residents are asking councillors to form a mobile home advisory park to help resolve the dispute.
A third party may end up being needed to find a resolution that doesn’t end up with people losing their homes, but town council was right to take its time before deciding to intervene.
Is this really town council’s place to get involved? If it does in this case, could the Town end up being called on to mediate disputes between renters and landlords, or condo owners and condo boards?
Mobile homes are regulated under the Mobile Home Tenancies Act of Alberta and it will likely require the provincial government to take leadership and create a process to resolve disputes between mobile home park owners and residents.
The situation is a symptom of a larger problem in Okotoks, a lack of affordable housing.
Town council can, and needs to, act on this issue. It should create an affordable housing strategy to encourage more rental apartments, lower cost housing and greater variety of housing options, particularly for multi-family housing and secondary suites.
Granted, the Town’s hands are tied until the annexation process is finished, a water pipeline is built and more land is opened up for development. Once it’s finished, the Town needs to have a plan in place.
There should be room in that plan for mobile homes. At present, if someone can’t afford to rent a pad at the existing park, they have two options: sell or move. But, right now there isn’t anywhere else to move to.
The Town should look at setting aside land for a mobile home park to give people an alternative and bring more competition to this sector of the Town’s housing market.t
