Mobile Home Developments: Impact on Local Treasury

The article focuses on the impact on local treasury of mobile home developments. The impact on the local public treasury of the parks in which most newly constructed mobile homes are located is as important to the discussion of the mobile home as a vehicle for enhancing the nation's housing services as is the analysis of private mobile home market operations. This is so because an adverse impact on the local treasury may cause local governments to resist zoning land for mobile home use. Furthermore, an analysis of the net benefits of mobile homes should include an estimate of their social overhead as well as their private net benefits. This note reports a hypothetical case study of the impact on the public treasury of a 600-unit mobile home park in an urban-fringe community of 16,400 population near Detroit, Michigan. A case study in other states with similar local finance structures would result in similar findings. In Michigan, mobile home parks yield revenues to local governments through various means.