A plan to build a 50-unit mobile home park on a portion of 50 acres in southern Albemarle County is dead after the Board of Supervisors deadlocked 3-3 on rezoning.
They did so after a three-hour discussion and a public hearing during which housing advocates urged the county to move past decades of rural area protection by allowing more residential density.
“Affordable housing issues are so interconnected with health and safety and economic development, and ideas like this should be rewarded and applauded,” said Emily Dreyfus of the Legal Aid Justice Center.
The property is in Albemarle’s rural area, which was created after a comprehensive rezoning in 1980. The rezoning request sought to change the land to a zoning category that allows for a manufactured home park with a special use permit. Albemarle staff said the project’s affordability provisions were a benefit, but building that level of density in the rural area is against the county’s Comprehensive Plan.
“There are inadequate services, facilities, and infrastructure to support the development,” said Kevin McDermott, Albemarle’s deputy director of planning.
For instance, there’s no public water; wastewater would enter into a drainfield and McDermott said that would be up to the Virginia Department of Health to approve.
Developer and civil engineer Justin Shimp, an investor in the proposed mobile home park, said there is nowhere in Albemarle to build a new manufactured home site. He urged supervisors to think differently.
“No one on the county staff has any kind of desire to be inequitable in housing or anything in this community, I’m sure of that,” Shimp said. “But sometimes there are policies that have been long-standing, not looked at, that can result in an outcome that seems that way.”
Shimp said manufactured homes are cheaper for residents to purchase and would provide affordable places to live without requiring subsidies from the county.
People who live in the community would have to provide their own trailer and would lease space from the property owner. Shimp said he and the other owner would likely purchase around 10 trailers for households who want to rent.
More than 30 people spoke at the public hearing with roughly half urging supervisors to maintain the spirit of the Comprehensive Plan. Housing advocate and city resident Matthew Gillikin urged supervisors to solve a greater community issue.
“This is an excellent opportunity for the county to address its affordable housing goals without spending a single dollar from its affordable housing funds, leaving budget room to support deeply affordable housing in the urban core,” Gillikin said.
One person who lives closer to the site called the water and sewer plan a guess.
“The idea that they’re going to be able to regenerate the water through a septic field for 50 homes and not have any problems with it,” said Kevin Fletcher. “That’s just kind of a pie in the sky type of idea.”
Supervisor Ann Mallek voted to deny the request in part out of a concern that a manufactured home depreciates and there is not often a guarantee it can be moved. Also voting no were Supervisors Bea LaPisto-Kirtley and Jim Andrews.
The property for a proposed mobile home park in southern Albemarle County is within the rural area where density is discouraged, in part because of a lack of public water and sewer infrastructure. Image via Shimp Engineering.
