OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE POLICIES: PRESERVING THE AFFORDABILITY OF MANUFACTURED HOME COMMUNITIES.

"Manufactured homes," otherwise known as "mobile homes," are one of the last vestiges of truly affordable housing in the United States. With funding drying up for government-subsidized rental programs, manufactured homes are an attractive form of naturally occurring affordable housing that enable low-income communities to attain home ownership and build equity. Manufactured home owners are simultaneously owners and renters. Although they own their homes, they rent the land underneath, and remain vulnerable to eviction. Manufactured homes are no longer mobile, and once the structure is placed on a lot and hooked up to plumbing, it is nearly impossible to move. Many residents of manufactured housing communities live on fixed-incomes and cannot afford the rent spikes that are now commonplace when park ownership switches from individual landlord to corporate ownership. When rent increases, many tenants have no choice but to abandon their homes. Landlords do not experience a loss of rental income because they can find a replacement tenant willing to live in the abandoned home. Opportunity to Purchase (OTP) policies hold the potential to stop this cycle. OTP policies require park owners to provide residents notice when they intend to sell the park. Landlords must allow tenants to make a bid, and in some states, are required to accept the residents' bid on the park if tenants are able to match the best and final offer. OTP policies must be swiftly adopted, but advocates and policymakers remain fearful of legal challenges under the Takings Clause. Two lower court rulings have held that OTP policies take private properly without just compensation because of the policy's infringement of the owner's right to dispose or sell the property to a party of their choosing. The "essentialist" rationale of these and other courts, upholding a single property right as fundamental, and therefore impenetrable, is fundamentally flawed. At a time when an essentialist application of the Fifth Amendment threatens any policy that challenges the status quo, a more integrated view of property rights must be utilized by courts to safeguard OTP and other policies from takings challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]