All Parks Alliance For Change - Accomplishments

Accomplishments

These programs have produced the following results:

• 1980: A plain English lease giving residents a better understanding of their rights and responsibilities.
• 1981: A national precedent was set for utilizing Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds when a grant was secured for park storm shelters in Blaine, Minnesota parks.
• 1982: State legislation to eliminate no cause eviction, prevent retaliatory eviction and establish storm shelter standards.
• 1983: State legislation to bar so-called 15-year clauses in leases. These clauses allowed park owners to prohibit in-park sales of older homes, forcing residents with older homes at their own expense to either demolish the home or move it out of the park. Residents now have the right to sell a home within the park regardless of the age as long as it is within compliance with park rules.
• 1986: Support from the Minnesota Attorney General's office to protect the right to organize in parks, by preventing management from evicting residents for forming a resident association and peacefully distributing flyers in their parks.
• 1987: State legislation to authorize municipalities to adopt park closing ordinances to require park owners and/or purchasers to provide relocation compensation in the event of a park closing. State legislation for stricter enforcement of storm shelter requirements, which gives cities the authority to order park owners to construct shelters if an evacuation plan is determined to be inadequate.
• 1989: State legislation to allow cooperative and nonprofit owned parks to homestead. This tax change reduces the costs of park conversions by lowering property taxes about 65%. The first park closing ordinance in the city of Bloomington, Minnesota. The ordinance provided for relocation compensation in the event of a park closing. Between 1989 and 2007, similar municipal ordinances adopted by 21 other cities.
• 1991: State legislation to create a right of first refusal in the event that a park is sold for redevelopment within one year of that sale. Residents or an authorized nonprofit are given 45-days to match the terms and conditions of the sale.
• 1993: Collins Park became the first park to close under a park closing ordinance. Under the terms of the Bloomington ordinance, 90 households were given relocation compensation or the fair market value for their homes.
• 1994: Three pieces of state legislation: (1) a requirement that home repossession actions take place in the county in which the home is located; (2) a requirement that park residents receive a copy of the park's evacuation plan and a certificate of rent paid form; and (3) a prohibition on restrictive zoning against parks.
• 1995: The Bloomington park closing ordinances is successfully upheld in court, establishing a legal precedent for park closing ordinances in the state of Minnesota. The former owner of Collins Park, which closed in 1993, had sued the city over paying relocation compensation.
• 1997: State legislation to require parks to provide criteria used for evaluating prospective tenants.
• 2003: APAC launches a joint program with the Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund (NCDF) to preserve parks through conversion to resident-owned cooperatives.
• 2004: APAC worked with NCDF to convert Sunrise Villa in Cannon Falls into the first resident-owned manufactured home park cooperative in Minnesota and the upper Midwest. APAC worked with NCDF to promote the conversion of three other communities between 2004 and 2008.
• 2005: APAC worked with residents of Shady Lane in Bloomington on the first exercise of the right of first refusal. It is challenged by the park owner and successfully upheld in court, establishing a legal precedent for the right of first refusal in the state of Minnesota. Defeat of state legislation that would have allowed park owners to break lease agreements and charge for water, even if it was already included in lot rent.
• 2006: State legislation to require that park closing notices be sent to the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency and the Minnesota Department of Health. APAC obtained a proclamation from Gov. Tim Pawlenty recognizing the vital role of manufactured home communities, honoring APAC's work on behalf of homeowners, and declaring September 24–30, 2006 "Manufactured Home Park Week." APAC worked with Twin Cities Public Television on the Emmy-nominated documentary, "American Dream Under Fire: Manufactured Home Park Residents Fight to Hold Ground."
• 2007: State legislation to establish the Minnesota Manufactured Home Relocation Trust Fund providing a statewide guarantee of relocation compensation when a park closes to 180,000 residents in over 400 cities. Passage of the final local relocation compensation ordinances allowed under the new trust fund program. APAC successfully argued before the Minnesota Supreme Court that no park owner can prohibit residents or others from peacefully organizing, assembling, canvassing, leafleting, or otherwise expressing their right of free expression in parks.