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Regardless of Park Purchase Battles Go On There has been a lot of talk about resident park purchase. Many including OSTA have been talking about this for years as the best long term solution for conserving this segment of the affordable housing market. Over the years Oregon Housing and Community Services has tried to arrange over 40 conversions to resident ownership. None of these were successful. So far there have been two parks successfully converted to resident owned: Springlake Community in Scappoose and Lake Shore Estates in Linn County. These conversions were facilitated by Deane Sargent of PMC Financial Services. There is another resident owned conversion in the negotiation phases that due to a confidentiality agreement we can’t name at this time. It needs be noted here that there is no connection between OSTA and PMC. CASA of Oregon is negotiating for a resident owned conversion in McMinnville. The purpose of pointing out the above history is to demonstrate that resident park purchase is not that easy to arrange and the first requirement is to find a willing seller. In 2005, legislation was passed stipulating that an owner selling to a residents’ association or other non-profit organization would be forgiven capital gains taxes on the property. This was a “carrot” offered to encourage park owners to sell to the residents. In any case when an opportunity for resident owned conversion is presented quick turn around is essential considering IRS tax free exchange rules. Having said that, for every park resident who will have an opportunity to participate in a resident owned conversion there are thousands who are faced with the problems OSTA has historically tried to help park residents deal with. Some examples: One park which is owned by Cal Am, a CA Corp., which owns several parks in the state, asked the residents to set up automatic withdrawals on their checking account for their space rent, which many residents did. When the park decided to require the residents to pay for water and sewer separately, to the tune of about $70.00 per month, the park took these out of the resident’s accounts as well. Note the agreement was automatic withdrawals for the rent only. Another, although this issue may be debatable, involves trees. There is an older lady who has lived in a park for many years. Over the years a tree along side her home has grown to the point it is now—about 35 ft tall. The trunk is less than a foot from her home. She feels the tree is hazard to her home and asked the park owner to have it removed. The owner told her that she would have to pay to have the tree taken down, which would cost hundreds of dollars. This poses an interesting issue. If I plant a shrub in my space, it immediately becomes a part of the land; if I leave the park, I cannot take it with me. This suggests that the tree would also be park of the land and fall under the responsibility of the park owner. It would be interesting to see what might happen if a tree actually fell (God forbid anyone getting injured), and damage is done to someone’s home. The homeowner would make a claim to their insurance company and let the insurance company have it out with the park owner. I’m sure State Farm has deeper pockets than park owners and could get this issue settled once and for all. I’m getting damn tired of the “heads the park owners win and tails the residents lose” approach to issues like these. It seems that park management interprets the law to best serve their interests, and many residents, especially older residents, are too intimidated by them to question their “authority”. Fred Schwoch
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